


Forgotten

by gracediamondsfear



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Ashamed Draco, Assault, Bad draco, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Breakdown, Not Canon Compliant, Post War, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sexual Coercion, Spells Gone Wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-03-04 08:22:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 18
Words: 52,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13360416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracediamondsfear/pseuds/gracediamondsfear
Summary: After suffering a brutal assault at the hands of the Slytherin in the end of her seventh year, Hermione Granger disappears.Six Years Later Draco finds her again, homeless, wandering in a small wizarding town where he has isolated himself after the war. Can he fix her broken mind and gain her forgiveness or should he even let her know what’s buried in her past?





	1. A Place To Rest

**Author's Note:**

> I have labeled this story for rape/non-con but after the very first chapter there will be none. The incident will be referenced in later chapters, but nothing more graphic.

SEVENTH YEAR - HOGWARTS

 

It was the last weekend of term and the Seventh Year students had just finished their NEWTS. As was tradition, the officially graduated wizards put aside their house rivalries and celebrated together out in the Quidditch stadium. It was nearly midnight and a tall, dense bonfire roared in the center of the pitch while groups of students stood around drinking firewhiskey and butterbeer as well as some muggle vodka and Guinness that some Hufflepuffs had smuggled in. Upon entering the party, each student blindly picked a scarf out of a box and wore it, regardless of the house colors. It was tiny gesture, showing that now that they were adults, there was no reason to hold onto grudges or encourage stereotypes when in the end they were just wizards and witches headed out into a particularly dangerous wizarding world. Of course, that didn’t always work; there were some hatchets that could never be buried and hatred that couldn't be quelled. Still it was fun to pretend for one night. It was fun to imagine that their futures were bright and limitless, happy endings guaranteed. The truth was that some of the laughing, drunk kids dancing in the firelight wouldn’t even live to see their twentieth birthday. They would never marry or have children, never see their young dreams realized. A war loomed on the horizon and they knew they would all have to play their part…but not tonight. Tonight they would celebrate.

Sitting alone in the glow of the bonfire, Hermione felt the throbbing ache of loneliness as she tipped back her third pint of Guinness. The creamy, bitter taste made her homesick, thinking about her father having them pour a pint for him down at the pub while she ate the chips off his plate. Of course there was no one to tell this story to, her best friends since the first day she’d come to Hogwarts weren’t there to celebrate her graduation. She’d invited them to the party (under special dispensation from McGonagall) but it was clear they’d put school behind them. Ron was working a Ministry case in Amsterdam and barely ever came up for air and Harry was deep in the Order of The Phoenix, trying to stop the war with Voldemort before it began. After sixth year they'd seen the writing on the wall and decided to start living their lives, no matter how darkly, while Hermione’s had barely begun. She pushed away from one of the makeshift bars that had been constructed around the perimeter of the stadium and having not eaten anything since lunch, found herself a bit tipsy, wavering on her feet. She’d never been much of a drinker but tonight she was determined to let loose and drink and smile and pose for pictures with schoolmates until it seemed like she was having fun. Hannah Abbot and Susan Bones ran over to give her a hug and a congratulations on her job offer. Starting in August Hermione was going into apprenticeship to become the professor of Muggle Studies at Hogwarts.

“Just couldn’t get enough of this place, could you?” Hannah joked, pouring them all a shot of firewhiskey and raising a toast.

“I guess not,” she said, shrugging. "At least I'll know my way around."

She’d already heard from Ron and Harry all about how she wasn’t aiming high enough, how she could be a highly paid healer or work in the department of magical law enforcement and maybe be minister one day. But she didn’t want those things. She’d fought enough battles, put up enough fights, been in enough danger. All she wanted for now was a safe and quiet life.

It was another two hours before she left the pitch, having hugged and kissed and cried with all of her friends, promising to owl and visit and never ever change. As the party started breaking up she noticed people pairing off, one last fling before they headed home, couples taking the final leap into bed or strangers proposing one night stands. Again her heart ached, although there was no one there she was particularly interested in being with. It was just the idea of being wanted, of being held. It would be nice. She stumbled over the uneven ground on her way back to warmth of her room, her cozy, wonderful bed. The further she walked the more it seemed as if the world was rocking back and forth, trying to throw her off while in the distance the castle rippled and blurred, teasing her. She’d never been so drunk, not even the night she, Ron and Harry split a bottle of firewhiskey fourth year, the three of them throwing up until the sun rose A few students ran past her giggling but she couldn’t make out their faces. She was suddenly very tired, unsure that she could walk another step. All she wanted to do was lie down. Laying down in a bed. Right now it was her life’s greatest ambition. Stumbling through the front entrance she found herself too exhausted to climb the moving staircases. Maybe she could just curl up in a classroom, or on the floor of the Great Hall.

“Woah woah, hey there…” a voice was near her ear. “You OK there, Granger?”

It sounded familiar. She blinked, trying to focus on his face There were more people…four? Four boys? They kept moving; she couldn’t count.

“I’m OK, I'm just…I’m tired. I just need to lay down,” she said, falling forward against his chest, whoever he was. He smelled nice, that was for sure, like a forest; and his shirt was soft. “Can you help me out? The stairs…”

“Holy shit she’s wasted,” another voice said. It was rougher, different sounds.

"Manchester..." she muttered. The boys laughed and she shook her head...maybe it wasn't a Manchester accent.

“Who woulda thought? I bet we could help her out, couldn’t we, Blaise?” A heavy hand wrapped around her arm, pulling her down a hallway.

“Come on Granger, we’ve got a nice place where you can rest,” someone said. She knew that voice for sure…the way he said her name.

“Draco?” She asked, looking over her shoulder. “Hey, Draco, can you help me back to my room? I’m drunk. I got drunk. I’ve never been so drunk. You can be a friend,” she said, her words slurring. "You can be my friend for one...time."

"Oh sure Mu-Granger...I'd be honored to be your _friend_ tonight."

She heard laughter again and so she laughed too. She must have said something funny. Everything did  _seem_ sort of funny. Funny and strange, like in a dream. Someone stroked her face and it felt good, a warm hand on her cheek, running through her hair. They were walking down stairs. Down. Not up. This was a much different way of getting to Gryffindor Tower.

“It’s hot down here,” she said, pulling at the sweater she’d worn out to the party. Someone helped her pull it over her head. “Oh thanks.”

Someone kissed her neck and she giggled at the feeling. Ron had kissed her a couple of times, it always made her tummy flip. His lips were nice and soft. She liked kissing. Hands guided her to walk backwards, which made her dizzier. Lips pressed against her mouth, then something warm and wet _in_ her mouth. A tongue. Someone not Ron was kissing her. She pulled away in confusion as he guided her to sit.

“C’mon Granger, give us a kiss. Don’t you know how to kiss?”

“Pfft, I’ve kissed before….snogging with…” she said, suddenly feeling shy. The mouth came back, but felt different, the tongue was different, but she kissed back humming against the soft mouth. It was just a kiss. But where was she?

“Draco? Is this my room? You can't be up here. It’s hot…” she said, as someone pushed on her shoulders until she was sitting on a luxuriously soft mattress with an amazing silk coverlet. Something started to feel wrong, a pit growing in her stomach that told her to leave. “Wait. I need a glass of water.”

Someone took off her shoes, a hand ran up her leg, lips slid over her neck leaving a hot trail of saliva on her skin.

“Lay down Granger, we’ll take care of you.” It wasn’t Draco talking anymore. It was someone else, someone who didn’t say her name like he did. “If you’re hot you should get undressed. Here, we’ll help you.”

Everyone laughed again and she tried to laugh with them; but suddenly everything moved too fast. She heard spells, colloportus and muffliato. She felt her chest exposed to the cool air, then her legs. More spells. Incarcerous. Her arms were stretched above her head, something tight around her wrists and she couldn’t close her legs. She was naked. She twisted her body, rolling onto her side.

“Oh mate, she’s got an ass like a peach,” someone said, pinching and slapping her backside.

The fear struck deep and in an instant she wasn’t as drunk anymore. She was just terrified. This couldn’t be happening. Not to her, not one week before leaving for good. Hands and tongues and lips covered her body. They laughed as she tried to free her hands and pull her thighs together, mocking her when she whined and whimpered.

“Please, please don’t do this,” she said, her eyes finally focusing on Draco who was watching from across the room, his arms crossed over his chest, grinning. His tie was undone, shirt unbuttoned. He looked...messy, his hair tousled, shirt untucked. “Draco…please. Tell them to let me go. You can’t do this.”

He couldn’t hate her this much, could he? He wasn’t this evil. She'd seen how he'd changed in the last couple of years. She thought he'd grown up. He walked a few steps closer to her and she wondered if he was going to rescue her, if he was going to tell his friends to leave her alone. Instead, the back of his hand cracked across her face and she tasted blood in her mouth. Draco wasn’t smiling anymore.

“Better shut up, mudblood,” he said, “or they’ll stuff something in your mouth and I don’t think you’ll like it.”

They all laughed. How many were there? Blaise? Goyle? Nott? She pulled harder at her invisible bindings, thrashed her head when someone tried to kiss her mouth again. Teeth sunk into the skin of her inner thigh, a wet tongue dragged up her neck. They smelled like firewhiskey and bonfires, butterbeer and chocolate.

“Get off me! Get off!” She screamed and bucked until finally they all disappeared. Draco pushed through and hovered over her, his wand pointed at her neck, his eyes fiery with seven long years of pent up rage. Everyone had stepped away from her. Now it was just him.

“Silencio!” he hissed, jabbing her hard in the neck with the tip of his wand. “Much better,” he said, his hand on her breast, twisting and pulling at her nipple with a sick smile on his face. “God you would have been so much hotter if you’d ever learned to keep your mouth shut. Maybe you could have landed yourself a nice pureblood husband.” His hand slipped between her legs and she opened her mouth in a silent scream. “Starting to regret those last couple of drinks, Granger?” He asked with a crooked smile. She tried to lock onto his gaze, to beg him to see her, to see what he was doing to her, but his face was cold as ice, his eyes bloodshot and unfocused. “Now lay there and take my cock like a good little mudblood and you’ll get out of this unscathed.”

She felt his hand between her legs again, digging inside, roughly pushing two fingers back and forth. Her mouth screamed silent pleas, and Draco hit her hard with the back of his hand again, a fresh coppery taste of blood bursting on her tongue.

“Lay still bitch,” he growled, unbuckling his belt. “You’ve had this coming for a while.”

****

She'd passed out when Blaise was on top of her. It was precisely why Draco had gone first. He’d wanted to see her face, to see her smug, self-assured top-of-the-class smile melt away when she tried to move, struggled to get out from under him. Now he sat low in the armchair in the corner of the room, drinking the last sips of firewhiskey from his engraved silver flask (a graduation gift sent from mother), watching her sleep. Goyle was stretched out on the floor, Blaise had gone back to his room and Nott was laying next to her, his arm stretched over her naked body. It was almost endearing, how he’d just wanted to stroke her hair and touch her skin, like some beast who’d never seen a woman before.

He emptied the flask and threw it off into a pile of clothes he hadn’t yet packed, grinding his teeth in anger. It hadn’t felt how he’d wanted it to. “Taking her down a peg,” as Blaise had suggested, hadn’t left him feeling vindicated or manly or powerful. In fact he felt dirty and dark and as if he’d stained himself with something that would never come off. He felt worse than he had when the whole thing began. Picking up his wand he levitated Nott and threw him to the floor with a thump.

“What the fuck, mate?” he asked, rubbing his head.

“Shhh!” Draco hissed, watching her twist and whimper.

In the sober morning sunlight she looked worse than he’d imagined. The bruises on her face were darker, handprints around her neck and on her arms. He rolled her onto her back and scourgified her between her legs, not so much as a courtesy to her but to eliminate any evidence. Not that she’d dare tell a soul.

 _“This is all you’re good for mudblood,”_ he’d said while he thurst into her, holding her face still so she had to look at him, laughing as tears streamed down her cheeks and over her temples. “ _On your back, spreading your legs.”_ He closed his hand around her neck and squeezed until her eyes widened, her cheeks red. _“And you’re not going to tell a soul, are you?”_ She didn’t say anything, didn’t even blink, so he shook her, slamming her head into the bed. “ _are you?”_ She shook her head and he’d smiled, letting her breathe again, licking up the tears on her cheeks. _“They wouldn’t believe you anyway. Smartest Witch of Her Age, Swottiest Fucking Bitch in Hogwarts. They’d never believe that I’d stoop so low as to stick my dick into your filthy cunt.”_

Now he shook his head clear, cringing at what he’d said, looking for her clothes. They’d have to put her somewhere before she woke up and nothing identifiable could be left behind. 

“Help me put her jeans on,” he said, snapping his fingers at Nott. “And get her jumper over there.” He’d vanished the shirt she’d been wearing and couldn't find her bra.

Pulling the jeans up her legs he saw the ridiculous evidence they’d left, a scar he couldn’t vanish, now still a dark and bloody wound on her stomach. He swore under his breath at the sight of it. 

_“We should leave her a thank you note,”_ Goyle had said, laughing.

They'd been almost as drunk as Hermione and it had seemed like an amazing idea. Goyle pulled out an enchanted silver knife and handed it first to Draco who knelt between her legs and carved a crude D in the skin below her navel, no bigger than a sickle, but it immediately dotted with red blood that ran down between her legs as the others drew their own initials. D T G B.

He'd used that knife before when he and Goyle had vowed to be blood brothers when they were ten. It was an enchanted blade and the cuts it made couldn't be healed. He looked at them now and frowned. The scourgify had cleaned the dried and dripping blood away, but she would always be marked, the letters meeting her every time she looked in the mirror. He rubbed the mark on his left forearm, knowing exactly what it was like.

It was only six a.m. and the castle was empty. Once she was dressed he pulled her limp body into his arms and disapparated, taking her to the moving staircase on the third floor. Looking down the corridors and at the sleeping portraits, he put her unconscious body at the base of the stairs for someone else to find. 

“Obliviate,” he whispered, worried that it may not work properly if she was unconscious, but he had no choice. If he woke her she’d recognize him and start screaming. May as well give her a few more minutes of blissful peace. He thought about saying something else, but couldn’t come up with the right words.

He had very little experience with shame.

 

 

SIX YEARS LATER – WIZARD HASLEMERE, UK

It was getting colder so she moved deeper into the little village, crouching between buildings, sitting in alcoves, resting on the covered stoops of closed shops. She’d been given two sickles and five knuts so far and it wasn’t even noon. Tea would be nice. She could buy tea and a few biscuits. But which kind? Earl Grey wasn’t safe. She didn’t trust the name, the male name, how it sounded on her lips. Peppermint was safe, but it wouldn’t protect her. It didn’t sound like a shielding flavor, not like Darjeeling did. She’d have to find a shop that had it, one that would let her sit and enjoy it, give her a few moments out of the cold. The wind kicked up and she wrapped her threadbare cardigan around her thin torso. It wasn’t enough. Her jeans were filthy, knees torn, mud caked and frayed at the cuffs and she only had a t-shirt and a thin black jumper that someone had given her when the leaves started changing. She didn’t trust the leaves, pretending to be green and then switching overnight, going all orange and red. They lied. 

“Hey you…girl, come on, get up. You can’t be begging out here.” 

She jumped up, terrified. He was a tall wizard, ran the bakery with his wife, but he was also a man and she didn’t trust men.

“I’m sorry,” she said, curling into herself. She snatched up her coins and stood, looking for a direction to go in. “I was just keeping out of the wind for a minute.” 

His face softened a bit and he nodded. She was so young, too young to have no home and a broken mind. Her skin was pale and sallow, chapped lips and red cheeks, her eyes dull. Her chin length hair was dirty and matted, an old scarf around her neck. 

“Listen, here,” he said, holding out a warmed pasty wrapped in a napkin. She pulled it from his hand like a cornered animal. The girl was too thin. He’d seen her around the village throughout the late summer, but it was colder now and she had no meat on her bones so he worried for her.

“You eat it first,” she said, breaking off a piece and watching the steam pour out. It smelled glorious.

He sighed and took the bite from her dirty fingers, holding his hands up.

“It’s not poisoned. My wife made them this morning, “ he said, knowing she didn’t trust him. 

When the baker didn’t drop dead she devoured the rest of the pasty, her stomach cramping at the sudden onslaught of rich meat and pastry.

“You know, you don’t have to sleep outside. It’s getting colder and there’s a Healer House down Brambleweed,” he offered, pointing down the road. “The healers there will feed you, clean your clothes, they’ll have a nice place where you can rest.”

Her eyes lit up in a mix of fury and terror. She stumbled backwards down off the stoop, holding her hand out as if she held a wand.

“Don’t touch me!” she screamed. “Don’t come any closer! You won’t get me in your dungeon! Get away!”

The baker headed back inside, shaking his head while the girl ranted and screamed at nobody, pointing and firing spells from a wand she didn’t have.

 

Across the street, looking out the window of The Dragon Claw, Draco Malfoy frowned. Wizard Haslemere was a small, very quiet village, but like everywhere else it had a handful of transient, maybe even homeless wizards that relied on the generosity of the citizens to survive. Most of them were older though, Trelawney types, wandering the streets howling curses, begging for sickles. But this girl, now headed down the dark alley next to the bookshop, this girl was too young. There was no reason for her to be wild and homeless in a village like this.

He looked back down at his book. The barmaid brought over another Buckthorn Ale, lingering for a moment at the table.

“Hey…aren’t you Dr—“ she started, arching an eyebrow.

“No,” he said, cutting her off, not looking up. He should have used a disillusionment charm.

“Yeah, I recognize you,” she pushed. “My cousin went to-“

He stood, throwing a handful of coins on the table before pulling on his coat, turning up the collar to hide most of his face. 

“Pretend you didn’t,” he said, shouldering past her and out the door.

He didn’t show his face in the village often, but now there was one more establishment he couldn’t go to. Perhaps it was time to head North, before winter hit too hard.

 

Stepping out into the afternoon wind, he looked around for the girl, flipping a galleon through his fingers in the pocket of his coat. A couple of coins could buy her a good meal, some gloves, maybe a good jumper. But she was nowhere to be seen and he wasn’t in the mood to go searching up and down the cobblestone streets. Most days he would apparate home, but when the air was crisp and the sun bright on his face he would walk to the edge of the woods first, enjoying the comfort that came with solitude. When he was alone there were no questions, no accusations, no judgments. When he was alone, he could breathe.

****

She could have gone to the Healer House. In fact she’d walked past it when she realized she was on Brambleweed Lane, but the colors had made her uneasy. She didn’t like the gray stone walls or the dark, midnight blue door with a brass sign on it. Two torches roared outside the entryway and she could see inside the wide windows. But the healers were men. There was a woman with a white hat and apron who looked safe, but it was too small of a house for her to feel comfortable, especially if there were other people around. She couldn't be in a room with men. She preferred to be alone, particularly when she slept.

At night she was plagued by bizarre, disjointed dreams that made no sense; like clips of a muggle movie with no sound, disorganized and choppy. They made no sense and yet they terrified her, waking her in a sweat, pulling her scarf tight around her shoulders for comfort. She wasn’t so far gone that she didn’t realize something was very wrong with her mind. There was something loose or broken that she couldn’t repair, pieces missing or put together wrong. All of these visions and memories, dreams and nightmares…they were all real, and yet she couldn’t figure out how they’d happened. Or when.

 


	2. Haverford Syndrome

SEVENTH YEAR – HOGWARTS

 

_She just snapped! Went crazy! Ran off the grounds and left all of her stuff!_

_I knew she’d lose it one day, couldn’t handle the pressure._

_Good Riddance, I always hated that swotty bitch._

Draco sat in his compartment on the train pretending to read the same page of his book for the fifth time. There wasn't a single conversation on the train that DIDN’T concern **Hermione Granger’s Nervous Breakdown** but luckily, no one mentioned his name or Blaise’s, or Nott and Goyle. Luckier still enough people had seen Hermione falling down drunk at the party that finding her on the floor at the bottom of the staircase hadn’t been a big surprise. When they woke her however, the fourth years who had discovered her there were treated to a wild animal, disoriented, bruised and bloodied, screaming in agony and wondering how she got where she was and what had happened to her. Anyone who tried to touch her, even to help her to her feet was pushed or kicked, someone even claimed to have been bit. Even when they went to fetch Neville to try and talk her down and help her into the common room she hissed at him to leave her alone, wrenching her arm out of his grip as if he were a stranger. She’d threatened them with her wand until everyone stepped away, letting her run past them off into the Forbidden Forest. That had been four days ago. The school had sent out search parties, even going so far as to contact Ron Weasley and Harry Potter, begging them to come back and try and find her.

No one had seen her since.

“Fuck mate, what did you do to her?” Blaise whispered, flopping down in the seat across from him. “I thought you were going to obliviate her and send her on her merry way. What, did you crucio her too?”

“Keep your fucking voice down,” Draco hissed, slamming the door shut on the compartment and throwing his book aside. “I did exactly what I said I would. What happened after is her problem.”

They sat quietly for a moment, Blaise looking out the window waiting for him to explain further, to tell the truth.

“She passed out,” Draco finally said, picking at a piece of lint on his robes. “She was out cold for hours. We dressed her and I took her to the staircase, but she was…she was unconscious when I obliviated her.”

“Merlin, Malfoy, you could have killed her!” Blaise moved to sit beside him on the padded bench, leaning in close so they could whisper. “You can’t obliviate someone not in their right mind, mate! You know it can screw with her head.”

“Yes, thank you, I know. It was a chance I took,” he said. “I had to, or maybe you’d prefer she woke up screaming rape and pointing fingers?”

Blaise had no answer for that. There was a knock on the compartment door and Pansy slid it open, flopping down in the empty seat without being invited.

“So the going theories now are werewolf bite during the party or someone gave her some whiskey spiked with Pixiehair Weed. I saw her at the party, and if you ask me--”

“What the fuck do you care?” Draco spat, his eyes burning into hers. “I would think you’d be happy to have her wandering off to be eaten alive by Centaurs.”

“Actually,” Pansy said, leaning in close, “I heard that she fucks Centaurs. Its why she’s in the Forbidden Forest so much.”

Blaise laughed out loud and Pansy joined in. Draco looked out the window of the train onto the misty landscape. None of it was funny. He hadn’t found one bit of it funny. He couldn’t get home fast enough.

 

****

 

 

> _Great care must be taken in practicing Obliviate as it, first and foremost affects the deepest memory centers of the brain, the most delicate and important tool of today’s wizard. If the victim of an Obliviate spell is under the effect of mind altering food or drink, even some herbal medications, it can magnify or alter the spell to the point of causing permanent damage.*_
> 
> _*Never perform Obliviate on an already unconscious wizard. The effects can be permanent and damage the brain beyond repair. (See Haverford Syndrome, page 453)_

_****_

SIX YEARS LATER – WIZARD HASLEMERE, UK

 

It was early morning, the sun shining weakly through the thick fog when she first saw him. Having been kicked out of all the stoops and doorways around the village, she was getting ready to move on having heard of a larger, more open village up north called Hogsmeade. The name sounded familiar but she was sure she’d never been there. What would she have been doing so far north? But H sounded safe to her. She trusted H, so if there was nothing left for her in Haslemere that’s where she would go. If someone could just tell her how to get there. She’d spent the night curled up against the stone wall just on the edge of town, preserving her strength to walk through the woods in the daylight.

He apparated a few yards off, the cracking sound of his arrival snapping her to attention, putting herself on guard. As he walked closer the sun burst through a cloud, surrounding him in an aura of bright winter white. He actually had white hair, white like spun gold, this light reflecting off of it like a halo. For a moment she could remember something, something deeply buried in her mind; a Christmas tree. It was taller than a building, dripping in gold and silver and twinkling lights, in a gigantic room full of children, and at the top…a beautiful white haired angel.

The man stopped in front of her, looking down at her huddled, trembling form. Her hair was shorter now, her face thinner, but he was sure it was the same girl from the bakery.

“Hey,” he said, once again flipping a coin between his fingertips. “Are you OK? Do you need help?”

She glanced up at him, his face almost completely hidden in sunlight that nearly blinded her, forcing her to squint.

“I’m OK,” she said, her voice small and gravely, her throat tight with cold. “I’ll be OK.”

He was a man. She didn’t trust men; although it was hard to explain why. There was no single event that she could remember, nothing that made sense anyway. Still, this man, this young and soft-spoken white haired man seemed different. He seemed trustworthy, like Darjeeling Tea.

“Here,” he said, taking her cold hand and pressing a small stack of heavy gold coins into it. When he spoke his breath floated towards her like little clouds, his skin was warm and soft as if it had been protected from the wind. She’d not felt skin that warm in ages. “It’s getting colder. You should try and find a better jumper, or somewhere to stay out of the cold.”

Five galleons! She couldn’t remember the last time she’d held so much money and suddenly she was worried. Was it a trick? Would he snatch it all back and laugh at her? (It had happened to her once before in a different place, a crowded street filled with anxious children. Four boys and two girls in black robes and green scarves had thrown coins at her feet only to take them back when she reached down to get them. She’d left London after that, vowing never to return.)

“I don’t…” she held up her palm, giving him the chance to change his mind. “I’ve never had…”

He crouched down and curled her hand around the coins, not smiling at all, making no effort to be overly friendly or conversational. In fact his face was like a stoic statue, like she’d seen in museums, blank eyes and cold, marble lips. She trusted him more than the others, the ones who cooed and smiled, pretending that they cared. 

“Just take it, I have more than I need,” he said. 

For a moment he squinted, tilting his head, examining her dirty, gaunt and colorless face, her eyes bloodshot and dull. She almost looked like…

“Why are you staring at me?” she said, standing up and crossing her arms over her chest. “Don’t stare at me,” she repeated, backing away from him, clutching the coins, the stone wall cutting into her back, making her feel trapped. 

“It’s OK. I’m sorry, I just thought…” he held his hands up in surrender. “Just tell me, what’s your name?”

“P..peach,” she stuttered, still wary. It was the only name she could remember someone calling her, and she figured it sounded feminine enough. Until someone gave her a different name, she would use it.

His brow furrowed as if he didn’t believe her. “Did you go to H…where did you go to school?”

She frowned then, looking at her feet in embarrassment, not wanting to tell him that she couldn't remember much beyond the last five or six years. She didn’t want to tell him that she could find her way to Ministry of Magic with no problem but she didn’t know where her family lived. She knew how to lock doors with a spell but not what her last name was. Everything in her memory was in pieces, some of it so shattered as to be useless. “I think I’ve only ever been on the streets. I haven’t been to school.”

“How did you learn your wand motions? I saw you the other day and you clearly know some advanced spells.”

She looked up at him, her eyes filled with tears, her nose tipped red. She didn’t know the answer. Why was he asking so many questions?

“I…I don’t…” she buried her face in her hands, sobbing, and he stepped backwards afraid she was going to go on another rampage, screaming and thrashing, bringing attention to both of them.

“It’s alright…don’t get upset. I was just curious. Peach, look at me…it’s ok. But you know the spells, why don’t you have a wand?”

She shrugged.

“Broken, a long time ago. In an alley, he broke it…trying to hurt me and he broke it,” she said, not looking up at him. 

Draco nodded, feeling uneasy, overwhelmed by a combination of sympathy and disgust while his mind flashed back to things he’d desperately tried to forget. Then, as quickly as she’d started crying, she pulled herself together, tucking the coins into the pocket of her jumper, staring blankly back at him. There was something clearly wrong with her mind. She probably fought in the war, took too many stunners, too many crucios. He’d visited enough friends in St. Mungos to know that the war had ripped hundreds of them apart. Perhaps she was one that could never be put back together.

“Well, take care of yourself,” he said, giving a nod of finality, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his coat, "and stay warm.”

As he walked past her, deeper into the village streets with his black coat billowing around him, she pressed the coins to her lips, drinking in the metallic, earthy smell of the metal. They were real. Five galleons. There was no other explanation, she thought, watching him make his way towards the bank.

He was an angel.

 

 

THREE YEARS AGO – AFTER THE WAR

 

The Death Eaters were put on trial in groups; all but Lucius and Bellatrix who were granted their own very public, very dramatic, heavily covered trials that filled the first three pages of the Prophet every morning with columns and pictures of testimony and analysis. Draco, being the youngest and last officially initiated Death Eater, had been granted a bit of leniency given his ‘tender’ age and how quickly he rolled over on his compatriots. Having grown tired of their rhetoric and bigotry long before the war decided they were the losing team he quite happily fed information to the struggling Ministry and liasons from the Order, most importantly, altering the wards of the Manor to allow them to ambush the remaining Death Eaters at the end of the war. Still, as he sat beside his mother in the gallery of the Wizengamot he could feel the eyes of his peers burning into the back of his head, their judgment and sentence quite plain…he was an outcast, untrustworthy and unfit to fight for either side. As the defense droned on, claiming Lucius had been put under Imperius Curses for more than a year and that all he did was in the name of protecting his family, Draco could see Astoria Greengrass sitting with her sister and mother on a bench across the room. She and Draco had been briefly betrothed, a contract for their engagement drawn up shortly after he’d finished school with a plan for them to marry once she turned nineteen. But for some unknown reason she’d called it all off after only six months.

“I don’t understand, what happened to make her change her mind?” Draco asked, trying his best to sound heartbroken for Daphne, her sister, who had delivered the letter formally breaking their betrothal.

“I…I don’t know Draco, I just know that she’s always had a thing for Blaise and he ran into her last week. She said that they had a long talk, reminiscing about school and she…she heard some things that made her change her mind. She's hoping that he'll ask her for a contract now.”

Draco’s blood had run cold at the news. He knew that Blaise had been interested in Astoria himself and had no doubt he would have stained Draco’s reputation in order to steal her out from under him. Of course, he should have been most angry at the loss of the girl. But the truth was that he’d felt as if a weight had been lifted; a prison sentence suspended. She was a nice girl and she didn’t deserve him. Losing her wasn’t what had upset him.

With Astoria’s break up and the whispers of Draco being a traitor and a coward, he felt the beginnings of paranoia crawling beneath his skin. If Astoria knew he’d…hurt Hermione she would absolutely tell Daphne and if Blaise had told Astoria, who else knew? The rumors about Hermione’s breakdown were wide and varied since her disappearance, as were the various reports of “sightings” in various wizarding towns. There was talk that she’d become a werewolf or was living as a feral woman in the forbidden forest. Someone claimed to have seen her working as a prostitute in Leeds and someone else claimed that she’d killed herself and haunted Hogwarts, a scenario that made Draco sick to his stomach.

In the years since the “incident” he’d found himself growing…hollow, as if he were rotting from the inside, holding the secret of what he’d done in a black space behind his ribs. He couldn’t understand how Blaise and Nott and even Goyle went on about their lives as if it had just been other party, another girl snuck into their dorms. Goyle had gotten married, was the father of a sweet little girl just now learning to walk. Blaise hopped around Wizard London living like the relaxed man of leisure he always intended to be, not a care in the world. Seeing how easily they went about their business Draco was left to wonder if they’d participated in such hideous activities before, enough that it held no special, sick place in their memory. It had been Blaise who suggested they “help her out” after all. Draco had just wanted to mess with her head, send her in the wrong direction, maybe lock her in a broom closet. But when she’d stared at him, her drunken face imploring him to make it stop in that aggravating self-righteous voice; he’d snapped. What did she think, that he'd gone soft, that he gave a shit how she felt, that if she scared him with a few fake tears he’d all of the sudden feel bad for her? He'd almost rolled up his sleeve to show her the newly minted mark on his arm...proving that the light was well and truly gone from him.

There was no doubt it felt good to slap her, to see the surprise on her face when his hand cracked across her cheek, drawing blood to the corner of her lip. But that was just Draco getting even for the punch she’d given him third year, even though he knew better than to hit a girl. What hadn’t felt good was seeing her beneath him, how she’d cried when he was inside her, her bottom lip pouting out making her look like a kid. Of course she would cry. Had he expected her to sniff up her tears and enjoy it? To all of the sudden start begging him for more? He hadn’t even finished, just pulled away from her letting the others get their turn, claiming he was too drunk to do what he wanted. When Blaise had left and Nott and Goyle were snoring, it had felt even worse to hear her moaning and whimpering for her mother in her sleep, shivering when no one bothered to cover her, her voice small and broken, nothing like the stubborn, prideful Prefect he was used to.

He’d tried to put it behind him, to find willing women who would beg for his cock, eagerly stripping him down in his Manor bedroom and telling him how beautiful and virile and whatever the fuck he was, but whenever he pushed inside them, he saw her. He saw a girl with a bloody lip, unable to move, unable to speak, crying in silence while he…hurt…her. It wasn’t long before further rumors about Draco spread virulently through the streets. He was impotent from the war, a big talker who couldn’t follow through, no wonder Astoria left him, what an embarrassment to Lucius and Narcissa that their only son would never sire an heir. They all swam in his head when he lay in his bedroom wide awake until the sun came up, some whore sleeping beside him because sometimes all he really wanted was to not feel so fucking alone.


	3. Doing Penance

WIZARD HASLEMERE, UK

He didn’t see her again for a week. The weather had turned ugly, too cold, with sleet and snow slicing through the wind promising a punishing winter around the corner. For the most part he stayed in the stone cottage in the forest, reading, researching, getting drunk on his stores of wine and whiskey. But liquor eventually runs out, as do ink wells and food pantries, and so he was forced to return to the village for supplies. The goblins at the bank knew who he was of course, but his vault was so densely packed and his business so consistent that they knew better than to call him by name on the bank floor, simply nodding and asking for his key when he went to make withdrawals from his vault. Having filled his bag with coins he made his way across the street to the bookshop for quills and ink, his eye catching the short haired witch cowering on the doorstep of Welliver's Wand Shop, wrapping herself in a tattered and dirty robe, wrinkled and covered in mud. The red in her cheeks was obviously from the cold but it still went a long way to making her look…healthier although she was almost painfully thin and shivering.

“Peach?”

She looked up, her eyes suddenly brightening, a weak smile curling her lips.

“Angel!”

“What?” He asked, but she just smiled. He shook his head, looking at her beaten and broken shoes, her lack of gloves or hat. For a minute he was a little angry. “What did you do with the money I gave you?”

Her smile faded, her whole demeanor deflating at the disappointed tone in his voice.

“I…bought tea, and food...a b-book. It was an old book about a school…”

He watched as she struggled to remember, her lips trembling in fear and he suddenly realized he’d been too harsh. He reached out to touch her arm and she wrenched it away violently, her eyes flaring.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry. I only meant that I thought you’d be able to get something warmer to wear. You’re going to have to find somewhere to go when the cold gets worse.”

As if in punctuation, the wind kicked up a swirling wave of sleet and snow, pushing them further into the shallow alcove and closer together, something he could tell made her nervous so he stepped back into the wind. There was something about him that smelled familiar, cedar and pine, like a winter forest, but as soon as she seized on it, it slipped away.

“I…went to…” she pointed down the street to one of the clothing boutiques. “I went to Tillyweathers to buy gloves. My fingers are cold and it’s hard to read. They told me…they didn’t want…me.”

She watched as his face grew harder, colder, as angry as the snow swirled around him. Knowing she’d failed the angel, she shrunk away from him, sliding down the back wall of the alcove to sit on the ground. Yet when she looked up he was holding his hand out to her. He wore black leather gloves. Maybe it would be safe to touch him with the leather in between.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, sounding almost exasperated. “I’m going to make sure you’re warm enough.”

As soon as he helped her to her feet he let go of her hand, turning away and walking down the street towards Tillyweathers. She probably should have picked a less exclusive clothier, but it still made him angry that they wouldn’t take her…HIS…money. A cheerful little bell rang when he opened the door to the store and two young, impeccably dressed witches appeared with wide, sycophantic smiles. He looked over his shoulder and saw that Peach hadn’t dared to walk in the front door, peeking through the fogged window instead.

“Can we help you?” One of the girls said, assessing his worth with a long glance at his robes and shoes, the ring on his index finger. Finding him worthy she added, “we have a new shipment of wool trousers that I’d be happy to help fit for you,” with a raised eyebrow, her blood red fingernail running down his arm.

Draco sneered, rolling his eyes. She couldn’t have been more than five years younger than him and yet he felt like warning her against being so…forward. It was not only unseemly, but she had no idea what kind of monster she was teasing. Not that he would take her up on anything she had to offer. Instead he straightened himself up and did his best impression of his father, looking down his nose at the salesgirl.

“I’m here because a…a friend of mine came in here the other day with some of my money and you were unwilling to help her. Is that the kind of reputation you’re trying to put forth? Because I can assure you that I have influence throughout the wizarding community and when they hear that you wouldn’t help _me…_ I promise you won’t be helping anyone else.”

The girl’s expression had gone ashen with fear, all the sass and seduction gone from her innocent little face. For a moment he felt bad, but then the girl looked over his shoulder. The door had opened tinkling the bell and Peach stood there, half in, half out, wondering if it was safe.

“I told you to get out of here you little goblin,” she spat, charging forward.

Draco actually held a hand out to stop her progress.

“That,” he said carefully, “is my friend Peach. She lives here in Haslemere and she needs a new, wool lined cloak for the winter. Size women’s small, I assume.”

He looked over his shoulder at Peach, huddled near the front door.

“I…can’t…you only gave me five…” she said softly, but he quickly shook his head, indicating she should be quiet. She complied, not wanting to upset the Angel.

The salesgirl was scowling, clearly unhappy with having to even go near the dirty (and frankly foul smelling) little witch, but Draco’s face brooked no argument. She was going to have to sell him the cloak.

“Our least expensive piece is thirty five galleons,” she said, hoping to dissuade him from spending his hard earned money on this street urchin who did nothing but make their village look bad; wandering the streets, scaring shoppers away with her crying and shivering. Couldn’t they put her in a prison or something? Lock her away in one of the asylums from the war? It made her uncomfortable to see people like her on the street.

Draco was walking around the shop picking things up, running his gloved finger over hems and sleeves, keeping his eye on Peach, who had not dared to move from the doorway. He picked up some delicate, dove grey leather gloves and a knit hat made of icy blue wool. There was a white flower on the side that he thought would look nice on her; not that he cared. The salesgirl came out from the backroom with the cloak folded over her arm.

“Would she like to try it on?” She asked Draco, her voice all honey sweet and entirely phony.

“Ask her,” he said. “And I’ll take these too.”

 

****

As soon as they got out of the shop, Peach pulled on the gloves and hat, smiling at how snuggly warm her new cloak was, buttery soft wool on the inside and even a hood she could pull up, deep enough that it hid her face.

“Thank you,” she said to the Angel, feeling as if she could never say enough how grateful she really was. “You’re the first person here to do something nice for me.”

“Well don’t get used to it,” he said, already walking away from her. “I’m not around very much. You’ve got to start taking care of yourself.”

She nodded seriously. The Angel was right, but she just wasn’t sure how to follow his instruction.

****

 

As the fall turned to winter, she watched every day for the Angel to apparate near the woods and make his way to the village. She learned that he liked to come in the early morning, sometimes when the sun was still rising, the landscape covered in dusky purples and blues. She trusted blue. He never smiled, never said hello to the other villagers, just walked with his head down, first going to the bank and then into various shops. He bought books and food and sometimes he went to the Apothecary, but always he’d find a pub at the end of the day and settle in with his book. She sat on the stairs of a row house across from The Troll and Ogre and watched him. He usually wore black, all black…to hide his Angel status, she supposed. But there was no way for him to hide those piercing grey eyes and snowy white hair. In the sunlight, when she was close to him (he gave her two galleons every time he saw her, telling her she should get soup and a green apple or health restoring potions or whatever else he thought she needed), the light made his pale skin glow against his dark clothing. More and more however, she saw that he looked tired. Not just physically tired, but tired in his mind, maybe like she was. Maybe his mind was fractured like hers was, pushing memories and thoughts to the surface instead of letting them sink into the sand. His brow was always furrowed in thought, his mouth turned down at the corners. His eyes had dark circles around them, sunken a bit in their sockets. He’d started to look a bit older.

“Morning Peach,” he said, dropping the coins in her hand.

“Are you ok, Angel?” she asked. 

He scrunched his nose up at the endearment, but didn’t dare fight her on it. He didn’t have the time or inclination to deal with one of her tantrums today.

“I’m fine, why?”

“You look sad, and tired. You look hurt,” she said, tucking the coins into her pocket. She’d bought a cloth satchel the previous week to keep her books and food and gloves in. It was nice to have some possessions…things she could use to remember, physical items to lock her memories to.

“I’m not hurt. But I am tired. I’ve just been…working too hard I guess,” he said, and for the first time in weeks, he gave her a tight little smile. It was enough though. It warmed her from the inside.

He looked up at the slate grey sky, thicker clouds rolling in from the west.

“Peach, there’s going to be a storm tonight. Where do you sleep?” He saw her tense up at the question and quickly clarified. “I’m asking if you have somewhere safe. You can’t be out in the cold tonight. I can help.”

“Help me with what?” She asked carefully, taking a step back and stumbling over the stair, falling to her knees.

“We can find you a place to sleep.” He held his black-gloved hand out to her just like he had before. “Here, let me help you.”

She jumped up from her place on the ground and clutched her bag to her chest, her eyes filled with tears. Why would he say that to her? He was an angel…didn’t he know how those words stabbed at her?

“Get away,” she said through clenched teeth. “Get away from me Angel. You won’t hurt me. You won’t trick me,” she tried to move past him but he was blocking her escape. Her throat went dry, her mind throwing a thousand pictures in front of her, urging her to run, to scream. Something warned that he was going to bind her, lock her down. “Get away. Let me go!”

Her voice was pitched high and nearly a scream, her eyes wide and wild, searching for a safe place, and Draco…recognized it. He was sure of it. He was sure he’d heard that panic and pain before.

“I know who you are,” he said, but not nearly loud enough to be heard over the wind. “Grang—“

She didn’t like to touch men. She didn’t trust them, not even angels. But she had to touch him to get away so she pushed both of her hands hard against his chest and he stumbled backwards, out into the icy street. Before he could say another word to confirm his suspicion, she was gone.

*****

He’d told one person what happened that night. It had weighed so heavily on him he felt as if his lungs would explode if he didn’t say it out loud, if he didn’t say the words to another person and hear confirmation that what he’d done was truly as horrific as he suspected. But he was careful to choose someone who would never betray him or abandon him or most importantly, tell the authorities.

It was after he’d been home at the Manor for a week. His mother had gone out with Mrs. Greengrass for lunch and he found his father in the library staring into the fire, a drink in his hand at eleven thirty in the morning.

“I know why Granger disappeared,” he said, not fully walking into the room. “Why she ran away.”

He stood on the threshold with his hands in his pockets, just like he’d done as a boy when he knew he was about to be reprimanded, as if staying out of the confines of the library would keep him safe.

“What?” Lucius looked up, confused and maybe a bit intrigued. “Do you know where she is? I suspected it was all an act…something concocted by the Order to get her into a position…”

“We attacked her,” Draco choked out, still unable to use the word that he knew he needed. Yet as soon as he’d opened his mouth, he felt tears stinging the rims of his eyes, his throat tight. He feigned a cough to straighten himself out and walked further into the room, struggling to put on an air of bored arrogance. “It was…after the graduation celebration. She was behaving shamefully, drank far too much for a proper woman.”

“Of course she did,” Lucius said, rolling his eyes. He even let out a little laugh. “She’s filth, no idea how to behave in social settings.”

“She...stumbled down to the Slytherin common room accidentally,” Draco continued, digging a deep hole of lies. “Blaise kissed her…on a dare…and she…”

“Filthy slut. Did she come on to you? Try to touch you?” Lucius was almost angry.

Draco was amazed at how he was being given the easy way out. All he had to say was yes. Yes she did come on to them, suggested they all have sex with her…she was a filthy mudblood slut after all. But when he opened his mouth he could only say what really happened.

“N..no. She said she felt sick and had to lay down. She wanted a glass of water.” Draco sat in one of the leather club chairs, digging his fingers into the armrests as if he were being held there against his will. “Goyle started…he unbuttoned her shirt…and Blaise kissed her again. She laughed. She laughed like she was enjoying it, kissed him back. I...I kissed her; just to see what it would be like...and then it just…it got out of hand.”

Lucius was silent, not looking at his son, having quickly put together the pieces and finding the ones that were missing. Draco sat across from him, his knee bobbing nervously as he chewed on his thumbnail. When his father said nothing he suddenly jumped up, pacing the room.

“She made my life miserable for years! She nearly broke my nose with a punch third year, beat my grades in every class and never missed a chance to rub my nose in it, that some mudblood swot was smarter than me. And then she had the nerve to sit there, half naked, crying, begging _me_ to let her go! Begging _me_ to unlock the doors, to unbind her…just constantly crying…crying…as if I would listen to her. Why would she ask me? I couldn’t even finis—“

He stopped midsentence, realizing he’d said far too much, things he couldn’t unsay or twist into something acceptable. And yet his father still sat there, swirling the ice in his glass, staring into the fire.

“And I’m the only person you’ve told of this…event?” He finally asked, glancing up at a portrait of his great uncle who was now scowling at him, shaking his head in disappointment.

“Yes. I just…I needed to explain. It wasn’t supposed to go that far,” Draco said, his voice nearly a whisper. “I didn’t want it to go that far.”

“Well it did, and you helped it along, didn’t you?” Lucius said, standing. “Still, she’s not worth losing your head over, son. It was a mistake you made, no damage done. She’s just embarrassed at having been taken advantage of. I saw the same thing happen when I was in school. She'll pop up somewhere safe and sound and we can all move on.”

Draco sighed, running a hand through his hair, deciding not to tell him about the obliviation. But as he turned to leave his father grabbed his arm, roughly turning him back for a last bit of advice.

“Never recount your crimes out loud, Draco,” he hissed, “no one is trustworthy enough to bear your guilt with you.”

*****

She felt guilty for yelling at the Angel, for pushing him away after he’d bought her a cloak and hat. As she walked frantically from one end of the village to the other she began to worry that she would never see him again, that she’d angered him and he’d abandoned her, leaving her to face the cold and dangerous world alone. Before she’d pushed him away he had tried to say something to her. Had they been instructions? A task she needed to perform to earn his loyalty? A penance she needed to do? Of course her mind wouldn’t allow her to remember the words he’d said, no matter how important, and so she wandered through the streets, crying, calling out his name, begging the universe to bring him back.

A day passed and he didn’t return. She felt a cramping sickness in her belly that she assumed was his anger, a curse he’d put on her that she had to endure. Wrapping her cloak tighter around her body she refused to eat or drink, or to take shelter when it was offered, holding her head high, gladly suffering her punishment if it meant the Angel would return.

*****

He felt guilty for scaring her. He shouldn’t have tried to block her in or hold her hand or anything that he knew would throw her off kilter. And he knew that he shouldn’t go back, that he shouldn’t push her to remember things she’d obviously blocked out. Things he'd tried so hard to block out for himself. So he kept himself in the cottage as penance, gladly suffering his punishment if it meant she felt safe.

*****

After a week went by, she decided that she needed to find the angel, to apologize for hurting him, to beg his forgiveness and ask him to release the curse he'd put on her - the way she couldn't keep down food, how it hurt to swallow water or tea, the coughing that nearly bruised her ribs. In the bookshop she had found an old book on Spirit Based Cryptids and she’d read about the angels. They were warrior creatures with pure hearts and immeasurable strength. Tucked into their backs were wings of fire and they protected the meek and the downtrodden, avenging evil. In the muggle world they were a symbol of their religious rites, but the wizard world knew that they were real.

There was a dusting of snow on the ground and the wet soaked through her thin soled shoes, making her feet heavy and cold. In the past she’d seen the angel disapparate at the edge of the forest and so she figured that he must live there, perhaps in the trees, perched high on a branch keeping watch. The sky grew darker as she stepped deeper into the woods. She wasn’t afraid of course. It wasn’t unusual or bothersome for her to be alone during the long nights. Usually when she was alone she felt safer, more confident. There was no conversation to translate, motives to uncover. And yet today her whole body was aching. Her throat hurt when she swallowed, even if it was a handful of clean white snow; and even in the cold rain her skin felt hot to the touch. Had a man in the village poisoned her? Was this a further punishment? It only made her more determined to push on.

She stumbled onward into the trees, looking everywhere for the satiny white locks, flashing silver eyes. Would he open his wings in here, thinking himself hidden? Flashes of memory came back to her. She’d been in a forest like this, running in darkness, looking for something. Shaking her head clear she stumbled over a root, cutting her knee, but ignored the pain of it. There was no time to stop for a silly thing like blood. The forest was huge, its floor uneven, packed densely with thick trunks and ferns and slippery wet moss. The sun had gone down and it was growing colder. She needed to find the Angel. He would fix her. He would fix all of it.

 

Draco was outside his cottage smoking a clay pipe filled with Pixiehair Weed. It calmed him when he woke up from nightmares, the sweet, earthy smoke soothing his lungs and fuzzing his brain. Before going back inside he stood quietly, scanning the forest, looking for intruders then closing his eyes and feeling for traps or disillusioned intruders. He looked up through the canopy of trees at the cloud covered sky just as a few cold raindrops splashed onto his arm. It would snow again tonight. He could feel it in the air. He made his way back into the cottage and started a small fire. The snow always reminded him of home.

 

She wandered the woods for hours, looking for some sign, a clue as to where he’d gone, maybe a feather from his wing? Scorch marks on the tree trunks? A lock of his hair caught in a burr? It was getting too dark to see, the trees closing in on her, and she started to panic. Branches reached out for her like arms and she heard voices, voices that had plagued her for years.

_“You’d better shut your mouth,”_

_“You wouldn’t tell as soul,”_

_“This is all you’re good for,”_

She screamed, running away from the trees, only to find others reaching out. Her throat burned, her head pounding in agony. They were going to kill her. They were killing her from the inside out.

 

He was reading when he heard the scream, high pitched and blood curdling like it had been in the village. There were, of course, foxes on the land that sometimes called to each other with deceptively humanlike cries, but he was sure this was her and she wasn’t that far off.

_Leave her. It’s not your business. You have no business trying to help women. Not after what you’ve done._

The scream cut through the darkness again and he stood, pulling his robes back on and lighting the tip of his wand.

 

She was too tired to run anymore, her heart was beating too fast. The rain had turned to sleet that cut into her skin like shards of glass, cold and relentless. Everywhere she turned the trees grabbed for her.

_You’ve had this coming for a while._

Again she stumbled over a root, her ankle twisting painfully leaving her unable to walk. It was too dark, too cold, she was alone and it hurt, all of her strength spent. Pulling her knees to her chest she curled into herself, hoping she could just fall asleep. Fall asleep and fade away.

Footsteps crunched over the brush and she could see a light through the branches. Her heart pounded hard against her ribs, her fear sending her into a coughing fit. She was curled up between two birch trees, her dark clothing making her nearly invisible but she knew he could find her. And when he finally spoke, she felt suddenly warm, her breathing came easier, her brain quiet.

“Are you OK?” he asked, shining the light of his wand in her eyes.” She was soaked, her short hair standing out in all directions, eyes wide fear and pain. “Peach?” he asked, crouching down to look her in the eye.

“Angel!” she whispered hoarsely, before collapsing in a heap on the ground in front of him.

 

The sleet started falling in earnest, no shelter from the wind or protection from the leafless trees. He had no choice. With a flick of his wand he lifted her into his arms. She weighed next to nothing and he could feel the bumps and ridges of her bones through the thin layers of clothing. Her head lolled back, rain covering her face, her cheeks shining in the weak blue light of his wand. It had to be her.

 

Picking his way carefully over the rock strewn forest floor he carried her back to the cottage; a place he’d sworn to never let another person enter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please forgive the obvious Pretty Woman trope.


	4. Pine and Winterberries

With his father in prison the sprawling, cavernous Manor became ironically claustrophobic, his mother following him everywhere, lonely and distraught. Her friends had abandoned her in the face of the family scandal, and she had no desire to fraternize with the people of society that _did_ want her attention. As a result, Draco became her lifeline, her therapist, her lunch date, and with every conversation they had, he felt paranoia bubbling up. Every quiet breakfast he was afraid of blurting out that he was a worthless beast, a conniving, violent criminal. They had lunch together in the garden and he sat on the edge of his seat, afraid that he would describe how he’d backhanded an innocent girl until her lip bled, how he tied her down and fucked her while she begged him to stop. Would his mother want to sit and drink tea with him then? Would she read him stories from the Prophet while they relaxed by the fire? It all became too much for him, robbing his sleep, pushing away every other thought or instinct and eventually she noticed.

“You don’t look well,” she said as they walked through Liberty on Regent Street, making their way to the entrance of the Wizard London shopping district. “Your hair is suffering for it. It looks dull.”

“Well thank you for that,” he snapped, stepping through the opening in the dark paneled wall. “Perhaps that’s why my engagement was broken off.”

“Don’t be snippy. I only mention it because I worry about you, darling,” she said, looping her arm through his elbow. “I hear you up late at night, wandering the halls, puttering in the library. I see how nervous you are at meal times, your knees bobbing under the table like a jackrabbit.”

He cringed at her touch, at the way she so lovingly pulled him against her, running her fingers through his hair as if he were still a child, an innocent child. She was trying so hard to comfort him and he couldn’t stand it anymore.

“I know you’re worried about your father. But he won’t be in prison forever,” she said, walking ahead of him and running her hands over a selection of jewel toned dresses and cloaks. “And he has friends in Azkaban, they assure me he’s safe and healthy. It’s only another year.”

He could hear the trembling in his mother’s voice as she tried to reassure him, tried to soothe her own nerves by calming him. It was obvious that she needed him. So he suffered. He struggled and bit his tongue and lived in the Manor for the duration of his father’s sentence, taking draughts of dreamless sleep to block the nightmares, drinking himself into artificial oblivion whenever he was alone and making sure to smile every now and again, if only to keep his mother happy.

 

*****

 

He left before his father’s official return, not wanting to see the disappointment on his face when he returned home to a son with no job, no fiancé and apparently dull, lifeless hair. Instead he emptied his vault and packed up the few treasured possessions he couldn’t be without and made his way to Wizard Salisbury where one of the local bankers told him of a modest flat for sale just above the shoe shop. He’d warned Draco that it certainly wasn’t lavish and probably wouldn’t be up to Malfoy standards, but he didn’t care about that anymore. What good were ballrooms and libraries and dining tables that sat thirty people when all he wanted was to be alone? 

His mother had tried to reach him by owl after reading the note he’d left her, but he simply tore up her letters and sent the owls off on a wild goose chase with an urgent message for someone he was sure was already dead.

His stay in Salisbury hadn’t lasted long. The wizard population in the town thrived on togetherness and gossip and nosing into everyone’s business in the name of fellowship and before long the news spread that Draco Malfoy (yes him!) was living just down the street, eating in their pubs, shopping in their markets. Even when he put on his darkest sneer and spoke in his coldest tone, they wouldn’t stop talking to him, asking after his father and what it had been like to work for Voldemort. They wanted to know all about Harry Potter and what it was like fight in the War. Barmaids begged to see the mark on his arm, offering quite a bit more than a free drink in return for his trouble; and he discovered that there was quite a fetish for Death Eaters amongst the magical community. After only six months he’d left, disapparating in the middle of the night with his belongings, leaving the citizens of Salisbury with one last delicious mystery.

It was after that he found the cottage in the woods outside Haslemere. Of course it had initially appeared to him as a broken down, three walled shack with broken windows, but he could sense that the land was charmed, wards put up to hide what was really inside. Once he cracked the code he found the tiny five room cottage, and a dead old witch inside. He transformed the building to fit his needs and put the charms back up, hiding it from anyone who might trudge through the forest trying to find him.

****

He set her down on the sofa in front of the fire, her teeth rattling together violently, her whole body shaking from the cold. As they’d made their way back to the house she’d passed out again and now he held her up, lightly slapping her cheek to bring her back.

“Peach…Peach! Come on…wake up. You’re ok. You found me. You’re ok.”

She whimpered and shivered in his arms, her eyes fluttering open, her mouth moving without sound.

“Shhh, no don’t talk. Stop. I’m going to…I’m going to take care of you ok? Why would you do this? Why would you go out in a storm like this?” Kneeling down he pulled off her wet and broken shoes, setting them near the fire, rubbing her icy cold feet between his hands. He brushed the rain from her face and felt her skin burning with fever. “Shit.” 

His first instinct was to reach for his wand, until he remembered who this was, who it could be. If this was Hermione, he’d nearly destroyed her with a spell six years ago. And he'd never tried to heal anyone. Who knew what another spell would do to her mind, no matter how harmless it was. The fire wasn’t warming her fast enough so he gave her a blanket, wrapping it tight around her shoulders.

“I’m…I’m sorry…I’m sorry I pushed you,” she whispered through chattering teeth, the words stuttering out on weak breath. “I’m sorry, Angel.”

“Don’t call me that,” he said sharply, frowning at how she flinched away from him, sinking back into the couch. 

“I’m sorry…I know this is my p-p-punishment.” 

He couldn’t take it anymore, this madness; all this talk of angels and apologies and punishments. He grabbed her by the shoulders and held her still to look at him, careful to keep his voice low and even.

“Hermione. Hermione Granger,” he said slowly, searching her face for a flash of recognition but finding only a blank stare. “You’re Hermione Granger, aren’t you?”

She said nothing, searching his face for further instruction, tears teetering on the edge of her eyes. If that was the name he wanted to use for her, she would accept it. She trusted H. So she nodded slowly, not wanting to disappoint him, but still not understanding what it meant for her.

“OK,” she said softly. “I will be Hermione Granger.”

He let go of her, his brow knit with frustration, and she fell back against the couch, curling her feet up beneath her, hiding her whole body inside the blanket.

“That’s not what I…” he stood, running his hands through his hair, sighing with exhaustion. “I’m going to try and find you some medicine. A potion. And something to eat. You’ll be fine, you just need some rest.”

She didn’t move from where he’d placed her, simply wrapped the blanket tight around her shaking body and stared into the fire. She’d tried to build fires in the past, gathering up sticks and leaves and attempting to cast spells to ignite them. But her wand was long gone and her mind was too warped to do any magic wandlessly. And yet she still new she had magic within her. It was like a hum beneath the skin, a hum that grew stronger when she stood next to him, or other wizards and witches. It was something they had in common.

Her wand, the tool of her magic, had been broken years ago. A man had found her in an alleyway and pushed her against the stone wall, hissing at her to keep quiet. She could remember how clearly the press of his body had terrified her, how she screamed and kicked, clawing at his eyes until he finally cast a silencing spell before petrifying her body. She watched in frozen silence as he took all the money she had; a sackful of coins she’d received during the week. A tear ran down her frozen face as she watched him tuck it away in his cloak. It had been almost enough to rent a room for two nights…a place to clean up and rest, to keep warm. Before he released her from the spell he’d stumbled backwards and stepped on her wand, snapping it in two places. 

“Sorry,” he said with a laugh. “Girl like you shouldn’t be out on the streets alone anyway. You need to be more careful.”

She realized it then. It had all been her fault.

 

 *****

 

In the kitchen, Draco opened and closed cupboards, frantically looking for something that would help. He could make her tea of course, with honey and milk, something to warm her from the inside, but she needed something else; a Pepper Up potion or something to break the fever. He put the tea together and carried out two mugs, only to find that she’d curled up on the floor beneath the blanket, sound asleep in front of the fire.

While she slept he filled the bathtub, adding a few doses of soothing potion that he’d gotten from the apothecary the previous year when he was taken down by the flu. _MAGICALLY SOOTHES ACHING MUSCLES AND TIRED BONES – Recommended by 4 out of 5 Healers!_ It filled the bathroom with the scent of pine and winterberries, a bit of sweet orange thrown in. 

“Angel?” She called to him from the other room, her voice a bit panicked.

“I told you not to call me that,” he said, walking out of the bathroom, approaching her very slowly. "I'm right here."

She was surprised to see him looking so – different. He wasn’t in his usual black suit and cloak, instead he padded into the room in bare feet; bare feet and jeans and a faded green t-shirt with an angry, twisted snake on it. She didn’t trust snakes.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what else –“ she wouldn’t look him in the eye, terrified of disappointing him.

“It’s fine. I…I’m…” he debated telling her his name, his real name, for fear of her reaction. If she really was Granger his name would have to trigger something. Something terrible. “You can call me…” she stared expectantly. “Call me Ferret.” 

“What?” she scrunched up her nose in complete confusion. Was that the angel’s true form? “Ferret?”

“Yeah, yeah that’s good,” he said, and she nearly gasped at the wide, toothy smile that spread across his features. A smile she couldn’t help but return.

“OK,” she said. If the name made him happy, it made her happy. “Ferret.”

 

*****

 

“There are towels and soaps and things on the shelf there,” he said, walking her into the warm, steam filled bathroom. “I’ve put some things in the water, potions to help you heal faster. None of them will hurt you, it just…it changes the water color. I’m going to find you something to wear.”

He turned around to find her already halfway undressed, standing beside the bath in her jeans and a dingy old bra with safety pins in the straps. When she reached down to the buttons of her waistband he stopped her.

“Hold…hold on, let me leave…give you some privacy," he said.

She nodded and he left the room, his hands trembling against the doorknob. Why did she do that, taking off her clothes in front of him? Did she not know how dangerous it was, that she shouldn’t trust a man like him? He sat in his reading chair, chewing on his fingernails, listening to the sloshing water and the little humming sounds of pleasure coming from the bathroom. He wanted to help her, but he was beginning to wonder if bringing her hear was a mistake.

 

 

It had been months since she’d had a proper bath. In the beginning, when she wasn’t so far gone, when she still had her pretty long hair and plump, pink cheeks, sometimes the innkeepers would take pity on her, offer her a room and a meal in exchange for washing the dishes or sweeping up. But as time went by, as she grew thinner and paler, her skin with a grey cast and her hair in thick matted locks, the less people cared, choosing instead to pretend she was invisible or dropping a couple of coins in her hand to assuage their guilt.

In the summer she would wait until night and bathe in the river or a pond, stripping down and cleaning herself in the moonlight. When she was able to bathe she usually moved as quickly as possible, afraid of being discovered or exposed. But this water! It was deep and hot and smelled like what “comfort” must feel like. The potions he used tinged the water a sky blue color with white foamy bubbles sliding over her skin. It welcomed her in, wrapping her in a tingly healing embrace. The warmth seeped into her bones, the aches and twinges fading with every minute that passed until she actually felt clean, renewed…healthy.

“Are you OK in there?” he asked, knocking on the door. “I found something for you to sleep in.”

He could hear her splashing and squeaking, pulling herself out of the bath.

“Yes, I just…oh!”

He heard a cry and the tinkling of crashing glass followed by a loud thump. She started groaning in pain.

“Peach? Peach!” He pounded harder on the door. “Are you OK? Are you hurt?”

She didn’t dare answer, her body shaking all over. While she was stepping out of the bath she’d slipped and knocked a vial of potion from the shelf. The thick liquid seeped out over the tiled floor, dark purple seeping into the grout.

“I’m sorry…I’m so sorry.”

The door flew open and Draco saw her crouched naked on the floor, picking up the bits of glass. She looked up at him with tears in her eyes, flinching away when he stepped closer.

“It was an accident,” she said. He could see that bits of the glass were embedded in her knees, trails of blood running down her shins. “I’m sorry, I slipped.”

Without considering how damaging it would be, he sat down beside her and pulled her into his arms, running his hands over her back, her wet skin soaking his shirt. 

“It’s nothing to be sorry for. No one is going to hurt you or punish you here,” he murmured. “Look at me, I was just…I was worried that you were hurt OK? So I had to come in.”

She nodded. She didn’t hug him back, but stiffly allowed him to hold her for another moment. Something in her mind told her “ _don’t struggle, don’t fight. They won’t hurt you if you don’t fight_.” Finally he pulled away to look at her face, his mouth set in a frown of concern. Her heart started racing as she watched his eyes slide downwards, taking her in. She’d almost forgot she was naked. Scrambling to her feet, she pulled a towel from the shelf. But it was clear from the look on his face that it was too late. She could tell that he’d already seen. 

For a moment he didn’t move, afraid he’d throw up or pass out or maybe start screaming. He’d suspected for weeks that she was actually Granger, but now it was confirmed. He’d seen the proof, dark pink scars, jagged and raised from the skin just below her navel: D T G B.


	5. Something Nice

“Please don’t stare at me,” she said quietly, clinging tight to the towel, her voice desperate and sad.

Draco stood, shaking his head clear. He couldn’t be near her right now. He needed to breathe, to think. Dropping the t-shirt and joggers at her feet; he backed out of the room, his eyes focused on the floor.

“You…you must be exhausted. And hungry. I’ll go make you some soup and then you can…you can get some sleep.”

*****

He could feel her standing behind him in the small cottage kitchen as he heated soup on the stove. 

“Why don’t you use magic?” She asked.

He didn’t answer right away, unsure of how to explain himself. The truth was he was…angry with magic. Having read about the damage the Obliviate spell could have done (and apparently did) to Granger, he was wary to use spells or charms on other people for fear of causing unforeseen pain. All his life he had been taught that his gifts were nothing short of amazing, incredible, something to be wielded with the utmost confidence. He’d never been afraid of it. And why would he be? The unforgivable curses were labeled as such and he’d never had an intention to use them. But since performing the Obliviate on Granger he’d studied the dangerous side effects of all kinds of “helpful” charms. The Episkey, performed incorrectly could cause huge, irreversible scars. The Invisibility charm could vanish internal organs or bones permanently. Of course he’d heard these warnings in school, but they’d been thrown out as afterthoughts, as something that so rarely happened as to be ignored. And when they were younger they all saw themselves as invicible. But now, since he’d seen the damage happen first hand, nearly every time he lifted his wand to use it on or for someone he shook, his palms instantly slick with sweat, unable to do even the smallest motions. Before long he stopped using magic for most things, including cooking.

“I still use magic sometimes,” he said, filling two bowls with the soup and shouldering past her to the living room. “But I cursed someone once a long time ago. I used a spell when I shouldn’t have and she…she was hurt.”

He stared at her while he said it, waiting for her to remember, for any of these triggers to bring it all back to the surface.

“Besides,” he said, tasting the soup. “It’s always good to learn muggle skills.”

Something clicked in her head, thoughts and memories shuffling through and presenting themselves. The way he said muggle, with a bit of disdain, she’d heard it before, his voice, that tone.

“I…don’t…I have a hard time remembering a lot of my life,” she said, still waiting for more information to float to the surface. Had she met the angel before? Had he tried to help her? “I try to think of things like…when you asked me about school. I have pictures in my head about school, but I don’t know when I was there or who I was or…”

“You’re Hermione Granger,” he said. “I’ve…I knew you when you were younger. You’re a brilliant witch, kind of a know it all actually, but you were an excellent student and you had…you had a lot of good friends.” Her eyes widened with excitement that caused his stomach to drop. She was drinking up every drop of information, energized at learning about herself, obviously thirsty for more. “I wasn’t sure if you were actually her but…now I know,” he said, his eyes flicking down towards her stomach.

“Because of my mark,” she said, frowning, rubbing one hand over her belly. “Do you know what that is?”

“I do,” he said, looking away from her. “But it’s not a story for tonight. You need to sleep and get well. And then I promise you Granger, somehow I’m going to put your mind back together.” He paused before making his promise, not sure why he was declaring such a commitment. “When we’re done, you’ll remember everything.”

**** 

Not long after finishing her small bowl of soup, he could see her energy fading, her eyelids fluttering closed as she rested her head on the back of the sofa, her skin clammy, reflected gold in the fading firelight. 

“Come on,” he said, standing. “There’s a room for you upstairs.”

He’d never had a use for the two extra bedrooms in the cottage; turning one into a small library and potions lab where he did reading and research but leaving the other closed off, the furniture covered in white sheets, just as he’d found it. When she was in the bath he’d forced himself to transfigure it into a comfortable guest room, warming the linens and lighting the fireplace.

“Here you go. You can go ahead and get some sleep,” he said, opening the door.

She stood there in the doorway, her arms wrapped around herself, shaking as she took in the warm, comfortable room, the soft bed. Her brain shuffled and she was with a boy, a red haired boy. He was kissing her neck, pushing her onto her back.

_"If I do something nice for you…you have to do something nice for me Hermione,”_

It was the first time she’d heard her name in her mind, heard it and recognized it. She glanced up at Draco who was looking at her expectantly, waiting for…something that she couldn’t decipher. He’d done something nice for her. He’d done so many things nice for her. Again memories pushed forward. She was in a little seaside town, outside a shop begging for coins. A man approached holding out a galleon. 

_Tell you what, little witch. I’ll give you a galleon if you go with me into the alley and suck me off._

It had been early on her homelessness, before she’d been forced to take those kind of men up on their offers, even though their touch terrified her and she was often left shaking and sick to her stomach, sitting in the alley trying to steady her breathing after they were done. Luckily, the the memory dissolved quickly and another one flickered to life.

_This is all you’re good for mudblood. On your back, spreading your legs._

“Hermione?” He called her name, breaking the trance. Her eyes had gone glassy and dark, she’d withdrawn into herself. “Are you ok?”

She nodded and stepped closer to him, her shaking hands touching his face, stroking over the little scratch of stubble on his cheeks. He was frozen, mute, unsure of what she was trying to do. Her hands were warm against his skin, then her fingers were running through his hair, over the back of his neck. Goosebumps rippled down his arms.

“You…you did something nice for me,” she said. “I have to do something nice for you.”

She went up on her toes and pressed her mouth to his, kissing him softly, her fingers sunk into his hair, so warm, her body so close. Draco broke away in an instant, pushing her hard enough that she knocked her head against the doorjamb.

“I’m sorry…I’m sorry,” he said, holding her shoulders. She was rubbing her head, two tears rolling down her cheeks. “Look at me Hermione. Look at me.” 

She raised her eyes, her lip pouting out, trembling.

“That’s not why I’m helping you. You never…you never have to do anything ‘nice’ for me, OK? I promise you that isn’t why you’re here.”

He felt her body relax in his hands. She blinked several times and nodded, sniffing up her tears.

“OK. I understand,” she said, her voice shaky and unsure. “We’ll just sleep. Right?” She walked towards the bed, pulling back the thick layers of linens, staring at him over her shoulder.

“Oh no…no. Hermione, this is just for you. This is your room. I…I have my own bed,” he said, walking over to her to explain it yet again. “You’re safe here. I know that somewhere in your head you remember…someone…hurting you. Maybe more than once…but I’m…not…I won’t do that. I just want you to be safe. I just want to help. I want to be your friend.”

Finally she smiled at him, nodding eagerly before climbing into the bed and pulling the covers up to her chin. She was so childlike, so small and fragile that he wanted to kiss her forehead and sing her a lullaby, to sit in the chair across the room and watch her sleep, anything to make sure she was safe. But instead he simply said goodnight and left the room, his lips still burning from her touch.

She watched the fireplace with heavy eyelids, her mind swirling, pieces sorting themselves, memories she’d never seen, words she’d never heard whispering in the back of her head. Just before falling asleep she saw a boy…a teenage boy with white blond hair, smiling with his arms crossed over his chest.

_“Oh sure mu-Granger. I’d be honored to be your friend tonight,”_

She fell off to sleep, the sound of distant laughing ringing through her head.

*****

> **TREATMENT FOR HAVERFORD SYNDROME IN ADULT WIZARDS**
> 
> Haverford Syndrome occurs when a witch or wizard is obliviated while severely impaired or completely unconscious. In this instance, the memories to be obliviated are not eliminated, but scrambled into existing memories, doing tremendous damage to the long term memory of the affected wizard.
> 
> Like all charms, Obliviate may be reversed, but great care must be taken in treating severe cases of Haverford Syndrome as the reversal must be done over the course of several weeks while training and observing the affected wizard, guiding them helpfully towards recovery, not unlike helping a child to put together the pieces of a difficult puzzle. It essential that the patient is kept in a sort of isolation as new information from constantly changing sources can affect past memory and the fragile reconstruction of the mind.
> 
> The key to reversal is stress induced discomfort which essentially “cracks the shell” of the memories, setting them to rights. In the past it was believed that only severe physical torture (see Cruciatus Curse Effects, page 593) could reverse the Obliviate, but under ideal conditions, simply raising the heart rate and stress level of the patient in a controlled environment, memories were retrieved, albeit at a much slower pace than when actual torture was used. 
> 
> Once the mind is repaired, if repaired completely, it is important to leave all memories intact, as a sufferer of Haverford Syndrome will be permanently susceptible to its effect, even when completely coherent. (See Case Studies, page 394)

*****

 

Draco couldn’t sleep. He’d pulled out a book he’d purchased years ago: _Maladies of Faulty Spells and Charms and Their Effect on the Wizard Mind_. The chapters on Obliviate and Haverford Syndrome had been read over and over, dogeared and underlined as he tried to find clues as to what had happened to Hermione and where she might be. And now finally, there she was, in his house, asleep across the hall. 

He touched his fingers to his lips where she’d kissed him. Her touch had forced him to relive what he’d done to her six years ago, how he’d actually closed his hand around her neck and forced his tongue between her lips while she whimpered and squirmed. But when he let her breathe she had gone still. And then she was kissing him back, almost like…she wanted to kiss him, her own tongue darting forward, her lips moving against his mouth. She was trying to placate him, soothe him with her touch. She’d been drunk of course, and didn’t know it was him, but he could still remember how frustrated it made him, how he hated and wanted her at the same time, how he’d wished he could act differently, think differently and how that enraged him even more. So he’d hurt her. He’d hurt her worse than he’d ever planned, pushing it further than he’d ever intended, until her face was red from silent screaming, her cheeks wet with tears, until he felt tears stinging his own eyes…his own heart pounding against his ribs, angry at his own confusion.


	6. Flickering Pictures

She slept for nearly sixteen hours and when he went to check on her she was covered in sweat, the covers thrown back from her body, her cheeks bright red with fever. If anything she looked worse than she had when he found her. The longer she stayed here the more on edge he was, but before he could fix her mind he had to find a way to heal her body.

“Hermione wake up,” he said, shaking her shoulder. “Hermione!”

She stirred and he put his palm to her forehead, cursing under his breath at how hot her skin was, knowing that he’d failed her. He wasn’t a healer. He’d barely paid attention to lessons like that at school. When would he ever have to take care of someone? He wasn’t familiar with compassion or selflessness. There had been no reason to develop those skills. But now he could see that he should have stayed up or checked on her earlier. She opened her eyes and smiled.

“Ferret,” she said, her voice weak and strained.

He brushed the damp short hair out of her eyes and ran a hand over her clammy cheek, offering a smile to comfort her, some attempt at bedside manner. If she remembered…when she remembered, he would never be able to touch her like this again. Deep down he knew that he shouldn’t touch her at all, not even to comfort her; but he’d been alone for so long, for years. It felt good to hear another voice in the house, different footsteps. It felt good to feel the skin of another person, even if it was just to see that she was ok.

“I’m going downstairs to get a potion for your fever. I’ll fix you some tea and you can take a cool bath, OK? Maybe you can eat something.”

He almost got to the door before she spoke again.

“I _did_ go to school, didn’t I?” she asked, pushing herself up to sit. “And you were there. You were…my friend.”

With his hand on the doorknob Draco shook his head, not turning to look at her, not wanting to see the smile he could hear in her voice at having pieced the puzzle together.

“You did go to school. We went to school together years ago. But no, Hermione, I wasn’t your friend.”

 

****

 

He was unsure as to why these memories were returning, why she’d remembered Hogwarts or him when he hadn’t even attempted to crack into her mind. While she slept he’d formulated a plan, a schedule aiming towards her recovery. In the last years at Hogwarts he'd begun his Legilimency training to complement the skills he'd developed in Occlumency. At the time he was learning these things precisely so he could be in better service to the Dark Lord, but now he wondered if it might be beneficial to use legilimens to see what exactly was missing from Hermione’s past, to see what kind of nightmare he was up against in trying to help her at all.

Maybe not all of it needed to come back. Would it be wrong to let her go on with her life in peace, with no knowledge of that one horrid night? That one black mark that ruined her life? He couldn't undo what happened, he couldn't take away the damage. What good would it do for her to remember? Hadn’t her life on the streets for six years been enough? Was it entirely necessary to make her relive being…hurt? Part of his motivation was selfish, of course. If she never remembered, he would never be held accountable. If she forgot it happened he could put it in the past as well. And maybe if that happened she and Draco could…it could be different. He would give anything to completely forget what happened, to not be able to feel her, taste the blood on her lips, smell her hair as she thrashed and bucked beneath him, the sharp, violent sounds of the bed squeaking against the wall. It ate at him every time he closed his eyes. It was...stressful.

Stress.

It was her sickness and her worry that was bringing these things up, cracking their shell. Keeping her alone, in the quiet cottage, slowly reminding her…guiding her like the textbook said, was starting her down the road to recovery. Once she got some of her strength back, once she saw that his ‘treatment’ was working, he’d be able to push her harder. But for now in her weakened state, these bits and pieces would have to be enough. He sighed, looking up the stairs where she was waiting for him, always so anxious to see him, so sure that he was there to save the day. How long until he walked in to hear her tell him that she remembered? How would he get her to stay?

 

*****

 

“Who was the red haired boy?” she asked, sitting up in bed, eating slices of green apple and pieces of aged cheddar cheese. It was his favorite snack as a kid; his mother used to bring it to him while he read in the library. She ate slowly after getting a stomachache the day before from desperately wolfing down her food. It had been three days and she was starting to look better. Most of the time she slept knocked out by healing potions or soaked in the bathtub, but he’d taken to spending mealtimes with her in case there was something she wanted to ask him, no matter how nervous it made him.

Draco had positioned himself across the room, lounging sideways in an old flowery armchair, again in his faded jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. 

“Ron Weasley,” he said, doing his very best to remain neutral, to not call him a weasel, to not make fun of his ridiculous family or name him and her, as his greatest enemies in school; the perpetual thorn in his side. “He was one of your best friends, right from the beginning. We started at Hogwarts when we were eleven.”

Draco had had plenty of friends of course; a whole entourage that followed him from class to class and did his dirty work; complimented his scathing insults and laughed at his jokes. But he could never really count on them like the loyalty he saw in the three of them. Harry, Ron and Hermione forever joined at the hip, laughing through every adversity, supporting each other…even falling in love. Nothing Draco ever had even came close.

“He…” she paused, her cheeks blushing a beautiful pink as she looked away from him. “I remember him…doing…he kissed me. Was he my…lover?”

“Jesus Christ,” he said, digging his fingers into his hair. Couldn’t she have remembered ANYTHING else first? Hagrid? The troll in the dungeon? Hogsmeade? “I honestly…I honestly don’t know. You were…together a lot. I’m sure he kissed you, he followed you around like a lost puppy.”

He looked up at her and she was frowning, her brow furrowed as she regarded the look of disgust on his face.

“You didn’t like him?” She asked, crawling across the bed to sit closer to him.

Her very presence made him uncomfortable, put him on edge. It was the way she had no trouble touching him, approaching him, grabbing his hand, standing so close that he could feel her breath. In the days since she’d come to the cottage her eyes had brightened, her skin had a healthy peachy glow. He’d promised her that when she was healthy enough for the walk they would go to the village and he would buy her some clothes, some new shoes…but even sitting there in one of his old Slytherin t-shirts and a pair of black joggers she looked…pretty. She looked clean and young…pure. So much so that he did his best to keep away from her, to not encourage her closeness, as if the black muck of his guilt were contagious. There were times when she still slipped, calling him Angel instead of Ferret, but he’d given up correcting her since it seemed to break her heart when he assured her the endearment didn’t fit who he was.

“I…I didn’t like lot of people,” he said. “I wasn’t the friendliest of kids.”

“Oh,” she said, continuing to eat in silence, considering what he’d said while glancing around the room.

On her second day at the cottage he’d given her a copy of what he told her was her favorite book: Hogwarts - A History, telling her that it would help her to remember what school was like. He told her she used to know the book front to back, never stopped talking about it. She kept it on her bedside table but hadn’t opened it yet. Something about reading about a place she didn’t remember made her nervous. Something about Hogwarts made her nervous.

In the silence he sighed and leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes so that she was free to watch him. If he caught her staring when he was awake he would snap at her, tell her not to get so close, as if he were some sort of venomous snake. It made no sense to her. He was the one man who made her wonder why she distrusted all the others. In all her years wandering around England she’d never met a man so generous, so selfless and so…incredibly handsome. Even when she was on the streets, curled up in a dirty alley, afraid for her life she would dream about his eyes - stormy grey, flashing silver in the dark when they sat by the fire. His skin that looked like alabaster, smooth and cold was actually warm, soft to the touch and she'd imagined his arms wrapped around her. When she’d tried to kiss him she’d touched his hair, silky soft in her fingers, the most beautiful color she’d ever seen. Everything about him was clean and white and pure. When he slept like this, dozed off reading or fell asleep while she was in the bathtub she felt like she could watch him for hours, the way his features softened, how his body relaxed. She’d run her finger over the veins and tendons in his forearm when he was napping the other day, feeling his pulse under his skin. It was a difficult decision to come to but she knew that if he wanted something…different from her, she would let him take it, no matter how much it frightened her.

 

“Did you like me?” she asked.

He opened his eyes then, frowning at her. He sat forward, his elbows on his knees, head in his hands.

“My family was…different from yours. We grew up…differently. And so I learned to not like you…people like you.” He stood up, pacing the room, finally sighing when she leaned forward, her face so eager to hear the answer to her question, so sure that she knew the answer that it broke his heart to disabuse her of the notion that they'd shared something positive so many years ago. “No, I wasn’t your friend and I didn’t like you," he said, ripping off the bandage. He should have just left it at that, let her figure out the reasoning later, but his mouth wouldn't stop. "You made me crazy. You were smart and strong and proud and you weren’t afraid of _fucking anything_ and you were so different from every girl there." He was nearly yelling now, rubbing at his stubbled cheeks and pulling at his hair in frustration. From the corner of his eye he could see that she'd cowered away from him, into the far corner of the bed. Good. That's what was supposed to be like. That's how she was supposed to feel when she was around him. "Growing up I was told that…people like you…like your...kind…were dirty and disgusting and weak. And it made me furious that you were none of those things. It made me so mad that you were…” _smart, happy, beautiful, secure._

“Mudblood,” she said, so quiet he could barely hear it. But when he turned to look at her she looked like he’d slapped her, threatened her. She looked gutted. “I hear that word in my head all the time.”

“Yeah,” he said, sitting on the edge of her bed but keeping his distance. “Mudblood. You keep calling me Angel and I keep telling you not to. I keep trying to tell you that I’m not who you want me to be, who you think I am in your head. You’re safe here, and I’m going to help you, but after that…you’re going to leave.”

“I have to leave?” She asked, her eyes filled with tears. His heart started to pound, seeing her cry, seeing her frightened. He’d made her cry again.

“No,” he said, getting up and taking her plate. “Once I’ve helped you get better, you’ll _want_ to leave.”

He left her alone, unable to bear her tears a minute longer.

 

*****

 

She woke in the dark, her fire burned down to smoldering embers that rippled and glowed, casting odd shadows on the walls. She’d dreamt of school, of Hogwarts. She dreamt of Ron and Harry, her other good friend. And in the background, always there…was Ferret, his white hair, a scowl on his face, or a sneer. Her mind was playing tricks on her, casting him as a villain, a monster.

_No one asked your opinion, you filthly little mudblood._

She dreamt of a moving staircase and dog with three heads; a giant, friendly man with a beard and wild hair and a hippogriff…she rode on the back of a hippogriff. It was hard to tell which parts of her dreams were real and which were fantasy. But none of those things were horrific. None of them would cause her to wake up with her heart pounding in her chest, her hands shaking. Yet as soon as she opened her eyes, it was impossible to get any of the images back; like grasping at smoke.

Still shaking she stepped out of her bed and pulled the blanket around her shoulders, shuffling out of the room. Her room had no clocks, she had no watch and it was impossible to tell what time it was in the winter, but the rest of the house was dark. Down the hall she saw the room past the bathroom with the door half open, a fireplace glow beckoning her closer.

It was Ferret’s bedroom. From the doorway she could see him sprawled out on his stomach in a four poster bed, his long limbs tangled in white sheets, one foot hanging off the bed. Just standing in the doorway of the room made her feel calmer. He’d promised that he wouldn’t let anything happen to her. He’d assured her that she was safe, that no one would hurt her, the memories couldn’t snap out and bite at her here. He was protecting her. She blinked and her mind raced with pictures, flickering so fast she couldn't translate what they were. Stairs, fire, kiss.

_Draco…please. Tell them to let me go. You can’t do this._

Ferret groaned and huffed in his sleep, breaking the spell of her memories. He adjusted his position so that she could see his bare chest, his skin looking buttery gold in the firelight. His left arm was flopped over the side of the bed and she saw something on it...something dark and snakelike. She didn't dare go any closer, having not been given permission. And she didn't want to wake him for fear of him being angry with her. But she felt safer being in his room. So she slid down the wall just inside his bedroom door, pulling her knees up to her chest.

He woke up early, stumbling from his bed half awake to check on Hermione when he was stopped dead in his tracks. There she was, curled up on the floor of his room, sound asleep, her blanket tucked around her like a cocoon.

 


	7. Into The Woods

He waited for her, pacing outside the bathroom while she washed up and got dressed. He’d cleaned the mud and grime out of the cloak he bought her and did his best to mend the tattered clothes she’d worn when he found her and gave them all back. It had been a little more than a week and she was feeling much better. In fact he’d seen her pacing the cottage, staring out the windows when the sun came out. She was feeling trapped.

“I need some things in the village, maybe we can go together,” he’d said while she ate a bowl of oatmeal in front of the fire.

“I can…I can go with you?” She jumped to her feet and he couldn’t help but smile at how the energy lit up her face.

 

*****

 

He’d tried to be angry with her when he found her on the floor of his room. He’d tried to scold her, to tell her that she’d have to leave the cottage if she entered his bedroom again. Finding her there, her bare leg sticking out from her blanket, her face so peaceful, nearly content as she slept had scared him out of his skin. She’d looked damn near angelic in the morning sunlight, her cheeks a little pink from the fire, no worry, no fear furrowing her brow.

Her face is what had gotten him into trouble so many years ago; her face that didn’t look inferior or dirty or devious, but fascinating and welcoming. It was in their second year that he realized why she was always on his mind, why his skin prickled when she talked in class. He’d done everything he could to hate her. Every day he woke up trying to see exactly what was so terrible, so untouchable and every night he went to bed more confused, nearly obsessed. His dreams flustered him, giving him a world where they could smile at each other, touch each other, accept each other; a world where she didn’t look at him as if he were a monster and he didn’t grind her soul into the dirt. His dreams were all he had.

She couldn’t be in his bedroom. Not when she didn’t remember what he’d done. If he’d trusted his skills more he would have levitated her back to her own bed while she was out, but instead he just nudged her with his foot.

“Hermione wake up.”

She startled awake with a gasp and jumped to her feet. She’d worn one of his old quidditch t-shirts to bed and it barely came to her mid thigh, stretching tight across her breasts. He was close enough that he could see the goosebumps on her legs and she must have noticed him staring because she immediately pulled the blanket up and wrapped it tight around her shoulders. He stood in front of her in a pair of black pajama pants, his arms and chest bare. Seeing her eyes roam over his body he quickly hid the inside of his left arm, stuffing his hands in his pockets. 

“Why are you…what’s going on?” His words came out sharper, harsher than he intended and she flinched, her mouth falling open. “Why are you in here?” He asked, lowering his voice; the confusion and fear on her face was enough to let him know that scolding her was entirely unnecessary. She was terrified enough.

“I’m sorry Ang- Ferret. Ferret. I…I had a nightmare,” she let her eyes dart around the room, not daring to look at him again. “I don’t know…I don’t know what it was but I couldn’t sleep and I saw your fire. I thought you were awake. I just...I felt better seeing you. When I could see you I felt safer. Even when you were asleep. I was just going to sit and wait for you to wake up but I....”

“Call out for me if you’re afraid in the future, OK? I’ll…I’ll come to you,” he said, interrupting her panicked stream of apology and guiding her toward the door.

She nodded her head and he could see the relief flooding her features. But there was something about the way she’d stared at him, looking at his chest, following his eyes when he spoke, a dreamy expression on her face. He’d seen women stare at him like that before. It was irresistible. As much as he dreaded it…he needed her to remember soon.

 

****

 

“Why were you in the forest when I found you?” He asked as they crunched over the icy trail that lead out of the woods. It was a sunny day, the sky bluer than she’d seen in weeks. Her ankle was still tender and so the walk was slow, a bit of a limp hobbling her progress.

“I was…I was looking for you,” she said, as if the answer were obvious. “I pushed you and I thought you’d…I thought I’d never see you again.”

They walked on a bit, closer to the village when he started to pull a plan together. Stress.

“What happened? Why did you fall? Were you running in the dark?”

Sure enough as soon as he mentioned it, she tensed up beside him, shaking her head, wrapping her arms around herself. Before he could even realize he’d done it, he lifted his wand and cast a warming charm around her, but still she shivered.

“The trees. At night they…it looked like they reached out for me. I felt trapped. And it was strange because I’ve been alone for years. I’ve been outside alone for years, at night, in the winter, in the wind and rain. But this time it was different. I didn’t like being in the forest alone.”

 

*****

 

When they got to the village she went silent again, cowering beside him as they walked to the market, her eyes darting to everyone that crossed their path, flinching at every jingling door that opened, jumping in response to the meow of a cat on shop stoop.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said, offering her his arm. “No one is going to yell at you, no one is going to kick you out.”

She slipped her hand through the crook of his elbow and they made their way to the apothecary. He was so confident. At the bank he conducted every bit of his business with fewer than ten words, nothing but tight nods and quick utterances. At the apothecary, the healers were entranced by his advanced knowledge of potions and charms. While he shopped she was happy to just stand beside him, watching him picking up jars and bottles, inspecting plant cuttings, picking up handfuls of herbs and letting them rain through his long fingers. A few of the patrons caught her eye, looking at her with faint recognition, but if anyone attempted to approach her Ferret blocked their path or turned to ask her a question, anything to shelter her from them, anything to keep her safe.

“Would you like to go back to Tillyweathers?” He asked when they were out on the street again. “You definitely need new shoes and I’m sure you’re tired of wearing my old rags around the house.”

She smiled but it was weak and he could see that she was nervous to go back to the store that had treated her so poorly a month ago. Against his better judgment he held his hand out to her and she grasped it tightly.

“You’ve done so much for me already. I don’t…there’s no reason for you to do all this for me,” she said, looking at their fingers laced together. She rubbed her thumb over the back of his hand and he felt his heart start to race. 

It was mid afternoon and the streets were busy with shoppers. More than a few of them looked in their direction, no doubt wondering what the resident crazy woman was doing with the town hermit. And really, what _was_ he doing with her? Making reparations? Buying forgiveness? Giving her a pair of shoes to make up for destroying her life? Anyone with half a heart would help a sick woman wandering through the forest, but he was obviously doing all of this to soothe his own tortured soul. Using money to solve problems was basically his family’s legacy. 

“I told you before that I have more money than I need, more than I know what to do with. Buying you a few outfits and good shoes isn’t going to make a dent. Besides,” he said, walking ahead of her to the boutique. “I want my quidditch shirt back.”

 

*****

 

She was a chatterbox on the way back from the village, clutching her bags of new clothes and shoes tight to her chest, telling Draco about a dress she once saw. 

“It was…it was in a shop window, I think,” she said, struggling to remember how she knew the dress. “It was a beautiful, long, periwinkle colored dress with fluttering sleeves. It was soft…soft as a cloud. Or it _looked_ soft. I’m not sure, but it was so delicate and flowing at the bottom.” 

He nodded along with her description, knowing that the dress wasn’t from a shop window at all, but the one she’d worn to the Yule Ball during fourth year. He could clearly remember her entering the ballroom on Krum’s arm, little tendrils of caramel colored hair curling around her face. It was the first time he’d seen her in makeup and he’d been mesmerized by her glossy, rose colored lips turned up into a shy, delicate smile.

“Ugh,” Pansy had said, her fingernails sinking into his arm like claws. “What is that color? And that fabric is practically see-through. Muggle whore.”

He’d nodded and shrugged to placate her, knowing he was supposed to agree, but in truth he’d thought the dress was incredible…a Muggle style he’d never seen before. That Granger wore it only added to his frustration. Muggle things were…base, disgusting, not beautiful. And yet she looked, ethereal…glowing. When she danced with Krum it looked like she was floating across the floor. She may have been the happiest person in the room.

 

The sun was sinking into the trees, casting an ominous orange dusk on the forest, lengthening the shadows around them as they walked. When they’d reached the center of the woods where the walking trails ended and everything became thicker and overgrown, he let her keep talking and get a few steps ahead of him before he hunkered down behind a tree, careful to keep her in his sight.

“I could eat Sunday roast dinner every day! It’s my fav-“ she paused, feeling his absence immediately even though she’d been the only one talking for the last half hour. “Ferret?”

He crouched behind the tree, swallowing the lump that formed in his throat the moment he saw the concern on her face. She was safe. He would make sure she was safe. It would be over soon.

“Ferret?” She yelled his name and dropped her packages, stumbling over the rocky forest floor. 

Had he left her? Was that why they went to the village, so he could buy her some clothes and wash his hands of her? A cold sweat prickled her neck as the forest grew darker, the limbs grabbing for her.

 

_Filthy Mudblood_

_Stuck up swot_

_Out of my way, dirty muggle_

 

“Ferret!” Her cry was desperate, filled with terror, and he felt his mouth go dry, his pulse racing. He couldn’t do it to her much longer. Unless something happened he needed to call it off.

She stumbled in circles, pulling at her hair with both hands.

“Please! Please don’t leave me here in the dark! Please Ferret! Angel? Fer—“

Her memory took over her fear, shuffling and sorting flickering pictures. A white blond haired boy yelling, fighting, students laughing, standing around in a huge building with vaulted ceilings. Hogwarts.

It was just as he was about to release her from this nightmare that he saw her stop. Her face went blank, her eyes closed. She was thinking. Her lips moved, making words with no sound.

“Ferret,” she said quietly, not calling out. “Ferret, you…you turned into a ferret.”

“Yes,” he said, still in the shadows. “Why? Tell me why.”

She jumped at the sound of his voice, looking out into the trees.

“Where are you?” 

“Why did I turn?”

“Ferret…you…” she spun in place, looking for him, barely hearing his question.

“Hermione, think. Remember, why did I turn into a ferret? It’ll…it will help you find me.” 

He snuck between trees, crouching in the underbrush, trying to ignore her whimpering, the shaking he could see from yards away.

“You…you were fighting. You were arguing with Harry. The professor changed you…” she struggled, pulling at strings to untangle the knots in her mind. “Potter Stinks….the tournament.”

He stepped out of the trees and she looked up, her eyes wide with astonishment.

“Good girl,” he said, offering her a smile. She stepped closer, tipping her head to one side, squinting as she approached. “What?” he said, feeling his pulse in his ears.

“Draco,” she said softly. “Draco Malfoy.”

He bowed dramatically and held his hand out for her to shake.

“Nice to meet you again, Hermione.”

She smiled wide, her eyes sparkling in the gathering dark.

“Nice to meet you again Draco,” she said, not noticing how his smile faltered, not knowing that just as her mind started to rebuild itself her life was starting to crumble.


	8. Lavender and Vanilla

When they got back to the cottage she took her packages to her room and started a bath while he put together something for dinner, their usual evening routine. As her memory returned, so did the important parts of her old personality. She spent hours reading in front of the fire, asking questions, investigating problems. In the mornings she made her own tea and breakfast and built up the fire, waking hours before Draco cared to show his face to the world. He often found her scribbling notes and questions on the rolls of parchment he’d given her, keeping track of her own progress, drawing out little maps of her life, the names of her friends, the classes she took. She was remembering enough now to understand how much she’d forgotten, each missing piece causing her additional frustration. The real Hermione was most definitely returning and so her interrogation that evening was no surprise.

“Why did you do that?” She asked, emerging from her bedroom in a pair of white flannel pajamas, her hair twisted up in a towel. She smelled like lavender and vanilla, a sleepy sweet smell that made him feel cozy and content, reminded him of his mother’s face powder.

“Do what?” He asked, sipping at the firewhiskey he’d bought in the village and stalling for time.

“Don’t be obtuse. You scared me to death out there.”

“I know. That’s what you need,” he said, still not quite looking her in the eye. “I’ve been doing research on your…condition. Your memory loss. In the old days they used to torture people to reverse…to bring back lost memories. Apparently stress, physical and emotional stress can help to trigger it. And it worked. Of course it helps to have someone guiding you along, so it’s why I called out for you. I gave you hints to help you. And I was close by the whole time to make sure you were safe.” 

She flopped down on the sofa beside him and sighed, looking off into the distance, obviously thinking of the appropriate response while chewing at the cuticle on her thumb. These were the things he used to imagine about her and never saw. He’d imagined her wandering her dorm in her pajamas, her hair wet from the shower. In the summer he wondered what she looked like in a bathing suit, streaking through the water, sleeping under the sun. What was she like on Christmas morning? How did she celebrate her birthday? He’d learned more about her in the week she’d been in his home than he’d learned in seven years of school with her, but it was only because she didn’t know who he really was. It was only because he’d been a stranger that she’d felt comfortable letting him in. Now that they’d been formally reintroduced, he was afraid it was all going to stop when there was so much more he wanted to know, retreat from him as she remembered what an insufferable prat he was. 

“So I guess this is where I thank you for not torturing me?” She asked, raising an eyebrow. He laughed and threw back the rest of his drink.

“Well, to be fair I don’t have the proper equipment here. Now if we were at the Manor…” 

“Just please, warn me next time,” she said, the old bossy tone returning to her voice. He’d thought it would make him crazy but instead it filled him with relief. Relief that the obliviate damage wasn’t permanent; that the real Hermione was still there just waiting to come out. It was also bittersweet of course. Maybe once she’d remembered more she wouldn’t…want to be around him so much. But at least now she knew he wasn’t an angel. Still, she hand her hand on his knee when she spoke to him, and he didn’t like the way his whole body responded to her touch. He told himself that it was only because it had been so long since anyone had touched him, willingly or not.

“But if I warned you, Granger,” he said, getting up to find the whiskey bottle. “It wouldn’t be nearly as frightening. 

 

*****

  

They stayed up late talking about adventures with Blast Ended Skrewts and she even remembered Buckbeak the Hippogriff, although her recollection of its vicious attack seemed a bit more comical than his own personal memory.

“I was terrified,” he said, looking into his drink, remembering the talons of that gigantic beast swiping at him, the dark, glinting eyes, the sharpened beak. “But obviously I wasn’t as injured as I let on. Mostly my ego was bruised.” 

She could easily remember how he looked, whimpering and limp in Hagrid’s arms. She’d felt bad for him even then, even though he’d spent the whole year calling her names and making her miserable. It hurt her to see him hurt. Sitting with him by the fire, she was starting to remember why.

“You just couldn’t let Harry have the spotlight for one more minute,” she said with a smirk.

“Of course not! I didn't care about his stupid scar or his destiny and all that. It was just that that mop headed lunatic always had the professors wrapped around his finger. He got away with MURDER at that school. And he wasn’t brilliant Hermione…even you can admit that.”

If the two of them had anything in common it was their academic achievement; their thirst for knowledge and love of learning. He’d seen how Harry and Ron frustrated her, copying her answers, cajoling her into doing their homework, writing their essays. Draco would have challenged her, engaged her. He knew the value of her mind. Even now they could waste hours discussing something he’d read in a book or arguing about an editorial he seen in the Prophet.

“He was a different kind of brilliant. You and I, we’re book smart, analytical. He…he was intuitive.”

He wasn’t listening. All he heard was _you and I._

_*****_

He couldn’t sleep.

 

She told him a long time ago that she didn’t like to drink alcohol, but had accepted a glass of wine after dinner as they looked at old copies of the Prophet that Draco had saved for various reasons; either historic news items or a picture of some beautiful witch featured on page 8, news of Slytherin finally winning the Hogwarts Quidditch Cup…his father’s trial and sentencing. He had a stack of the papers stored in his study, neatly folded, a bit yellowed at the edges, and Hermione devoured them, running her hands over the looping photographs, thanking him profusely for allowing her access to his “library” which was really a room not much bigger than the kitchen where he did most of his studying.

“Stop in any time,” he’d said, leaning against the door frame, watching her run her fingers over the dusty spines. “Most of these books are guaranteed to work better than a sleeping potion. Although there are a few horrible wizard romances on the bottom shelf. The witch who used to live here read them until the covers fell off.”

“Thanks Malfoy,” she’d said, using his last name like she always used to, but without the hint of disdain she used to apply. She’d grabbed a couple of history books off the shelf and shouldered past him to go to her room.

Now he sat on the edge of his bed, head in hands, watching the fire. A storm had whipped up, pelting the windows with sleet and rain, thunder rattling the walls. He felt her presence before he heard her, the weight change on the bed as she climbed in.

“I was afraid of the storm,” she said quietly. 

He closed his eyes, not daring to turn around, to see her in his bed willingly, her hair wild from a night of tossing and turning, her eyes wide and glittering. If he saw her face he would fall apart.

“You shouldn’t be in here,” he said, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “I told you not to come in here.”

The weight on the bed changed again as she moved closer and he felt her right behind him, her hands running up his back to his shoulders. When she breathed he could feel her breasts, bare, warm, pressing against his flesh as she leaned against him, her hands roaming over his skin, short fingernails leaving a trail of goosebumps down his arms.

“Hermione,”

“Shhh…” she said, pressing her lips to the bone at the top of his spine. The Atlas Bone. It carries the weight of the world. “I want to do something nice for you, Draco. You’ve always been so nice to me.”

He couldn’t move. His fingers dug into the muscles of his thighs as she kissed his neck, the skin behind his ear, her tongue flicking out to taste him. She wrapped her arms around his chest, her legs hooking around his hips and he realized she was naked; naked and offering herself as a sacrifice. 

“I shouldn’t be with you. I shouldn’t touch you,” he said, his voice a croaking whisper. “Don’t let me touch you. I’m poison to you, Granger.”

She let go of him and for one terrifying moment he was sure that she would leave. She would do the right thing and go back to her room, taking his advice. But instead she climbed off the bed to stand in front of him, hands at her sides, her body blocking the heat of the fire but warming him all the same.

“You’re a good man, Draco,” she said, lifting his hand and putting it on her stomach, closing her eyes and purring with pleasure when he stroked her skin, her hip, the ladder of ribs up her side. She didn't move as he traced the letters scarring her flesh. “You deserve this. We can have this.” 

She bent down and took his face in her hands, kissing him on the mouth. Her tongue dipped between his lips, coaxing his response, her fingers threading through his hair. This was what he’d wanted. It was what he’d always wanted. It’s what made him crazy for so many years. All those years that he was supposed to hate her, he’d loved her. He’d wanted her, craved her like a drug, and she’d been entirely oblivious. She refused to fight back, to show him her own fire. Even when he spat insults at her, threatened her, screamed in her face she simply tossed her hair and ignored him, turning to Harry and Ron for support. The smartest witch in the school and she couldn't see the feelings barely hidden beneath the surface of his rage. So his anger built, his frustration, and with it his want. Why couldn’t she see how he wanted her? Why couldn’t she want him back?

She threw a leg over his thighs and straddled his lap, still holding his face, grinding and bucking over his hardening prick, pulling rumbling groan from deep in his belly. For years he'd waited. For years he wanted another chance. A chance to make it all up to her, to take away the hurt he’d caused. He wanted to kiss her wrists and her ankles, the scars beneath her navel. He wanted to watch her whine and moan in pleasure, not beg for mercy. Seeing her in front of him now he knew he would beg on his knees for that chance.

“Show me,” he said, whispering against her mouth, her lips wet and swollen. Still he held his hands at his sides, tense and unsure. “Show me that you want me.”

She nodded, kissing her way down his chest, her tongue licking at the salty damp skin. She slid down to kneel between his spread thighs, one hand on his waistband, the other on his erection, stroking his cock with her palm through the soft fabric of his pants. She looked up at him from her knees, her eyes like bronze in the firelight, licking her lips hungrily, all but begging him to take her. He finally let go, running his fingers through her hair, rubbing his thumb over her lips.

"I've always wanted you, Hermione," he said as she leaned forward to take him in her mouth.

“I want you too, Draco,” she said, a sly smile on her face. “I want you even after you raped me.”

 

He woke with his heart pounding, his skin slick with sweat and his bedroom empty. The fire had gone out, leaving him alone in the dark and cold.

 

****

 

He hated the word. Whenever he heard it a cold shiver ran up his back, his stomach lurching. Even when he was alone, remembering that night and the awful things they’d done he could never use the word. He could never say that he…raped her. He hurt her. He hit her, made her bleed, made her cry. He bound her in magic and silenced her with charms and forced himself inside her; watched in drunken silence as Blaise had done the same. When he tossed and turned at night or walked alone through the forest with only his thoughts he called himself a monster, a criminal, a devil, a beast…but never that. Not a rapist. It was just too much. The weight was too heavy to carry. He’d never say it himself. But he knew that hearing it from her lips was a burden he’d bear soon enough.

 


	9. The Hidden Cottage

“Hey you,” he said, nudging her with his foot as he came out of the kitchen. “Do you want something for dinner?”

She’d fallen asleep in the armchair in front of the fire, parchment and quill in her lap, open book balanced on the upholstered arm.

“Wh—what? Oh, Malfoy…I…I must have fallen…” she quickly gathered up her things, dropping a small book he hadn’t noticed before. 

He leant down to pick it up: _Twelve_ _Easy Glamours For Beautiful Witches_. Why in the world was this in his library? She grabbed it out of his hand, her cheeks flaming red.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said, clutching everything tight to her chest. He couldn’t help but smile at her very serious ‘thinking’ face. It made her look twelve years old all over again. “I need to go back to the village for some things. I have a few galleons saved from what you gave me, and I can go alone...” her confidence started to fade as he realized she was nervous to go by herself. Besides, she’d never find the cottage again, hidden as it was.

“I’m happy to go with you, Granger. As you can see I’m something of a bore. Getting out of the house would do me some good. We can go tomorrow if you want. It’s too late now, by the time we got there most of the shops would be closed. And I told you to quit talking about money. I’ve got whatever you need, you know that now. I’d think you’d take pleasure in spending my father’s fortune. What are we going to get there anyway?”

“Well I was...I’m hoping I can get a new wand,” she said quietly, sitting back down in the chair.

They did so little magic around the cottage that he’d nearly forgotten she didn’t have one, nearly forgotten she was a witch at all. In his studies they’d warned against letting Obliviate-damaged people apparate and so he’d agreed to avoid doing it himself to make her more comfortable. He occasionally used his wand to light the fire or pull something from a high shelf, but with just the two of them around most household spells and charms were superfluous.

“We’ll go first thing,” he said. “C’mon, let’s make something for supper.”

 

When she bathed at night the letters bothered her, seeing them in the mirror, feeling them with her fingers as she soaped up her body. They were crudely carved, oddly spaced and made no sense. She’d looked through dozens of books on hexes, curses, looking for acronyms with those four letters, but nothing matched. Draco had told her on her first night there that he knew what the letters were but wouldn’t tell her, and she could tell by the look on his face that their existence disgusted him. Had he seen a similar marking on someone else? She attempted to cover them with glamours but they did nothing to make her feel better. She could still _feel_ them there, see them when she closed her eyes. If she couldn’t even look at herself with such a garish mark, how could she ever expect someone else to want to look at her or to touch her at all?

 

She was surprised when he offered her his arm as they walked through the forest to the village. He seemed almost cheerful, making jokes about school, telling her stories about Quidditch, giving her little tidbits about the history of Wizard Haslemere. Still she was on guard, waiting for his next “stress therapy” ploy, wondering when it would come. It had been nearly a week since the incident in the forest and it still made her heart race remembering how he’d simply…disappeared. 

“Are you ok?” He asked, as they made their way to the wand shop at the end of the street. “You usually talk my ear off but you’ve barely said a word in the last hour.”

“I’m just…I’m anxious to get my magic back,” she said, pulling away from him, smoothing her cloak.

“You always had your magic, Granger,” he said, holding the door open for her. “You just need a new tool to harness it.”

 

The village was preparing for Christmas, swags of greens and bright red baubles strung from the windows, floating candles and sparkling ornaments lighting the streets. She smiled and clutched the box containing her new wand tight to her chest. Already she could feel a thrum of energy through her blood. When she’d held the fir wood wand in her hand it had made her heart flutter, she felt…awake. Her memories of being paired with her first wand were fuzzy, she couldn’t remember how it felt to first hold it in her hand, but this was a feeling she knew she’d treasure all her life. And she had Draco Malfoy to thank for it.

“Let’s go to the pub,” she said, pulling him towards the Dragon Claw. “To celebrate. 

He hesitated, but seeing her so happy was the deciding factor and they went inside. The barmaid brought them their drinks and gave Draco a wink on her way back to the bar, swinging her hips the whole way. Hermione felt a twinge of something in her belly…jealousy? She drank half of her wine and sat back, smirking at him.

“She likes you,” she said. “Did you see how she bent forward so you could see down her shirt? Do you know her name?”

"No," he said, glancing back at the bar over his shoulder.

"Maybe you should ask. I think she's interested."

He shook his head, his lips tight, darting around the room as he sipped his ale, avoiding the topic completely. She quickly changed the subject, outlining how she would train with her wand, the spells she was most excited to use. She made him promise to duel with her, or at least help her build a dummy and he nodded. Then she tried making him laugh with stories of Ron’s antics with his broken wand second year. He chuckled politely and smiled at the stories she told, but the longer they stayed at the tavern the quieter he got, more nervous, tugging at the sleeves of his robe.

“Do you want to go home?” She asked, reaching out to put her hand over his. 

He felt his cheeks flare with heat when she said it that way. Home. As if they had a life together in his hidden cottage, as if they were…together. He swallowed down the lump in his throat and shook his head. His feelings, his fears weren’t important anymore…he had to keep her happy.

“It’s fine. I just don’t…go out very often and I don’t like crowds.” He finished his beer and pushed the glass aside, clearing away a ring of condensation on the table with a bit of wandless magic, something he hadn’t attempted in years.

“I was nervous in the woods because I keep waiting for you to spring something on me,” she said, resting her chin in her hand.

She was beautiful in the low light of the pub, the twinkling Christmas candles and the glow from the fireplace. When they were in school he would watch her huddle with Harry and Ron or Ginny and Luna at the Three Broomsticks, giggling and drinking butterbeers, sitting close enough that their heads were touching, so comfortable with each other. They all hugged and nudged and held hands, walking back from Hogsmeade arm in arm. He’d tried for that kind of affection with Pansy, liking the way she ran her fingers through his hair or rubbed his shoulders while he was studying; but he quickly learned that she only did those things when other girls were watching, or if Blaise was there so she could make him jealous. She used Draco as a tool for her own popularity. Not that he didn’t get anything pleasurable out of the deal, but it hurt to discover that her petting and fawning and doting were just a means to an end.

“I was waiting for you to apparate away some where and jump out and attack me,” Hermione said, laughing. Draco’s head snapped up, his brow furrowed.

“Why would I do that?” He asked. “Attack you?”

“I was just…it was a joke. I just...I know now that you said you had to stress me out,” she said, touching his hand again. “And I have to say when you disappeared on me in the woods last week, it definitely scared me. I was alone for so long, alone in the dark, in the city, in the cold…and I’d gotten comfortable being…not alone with you. I thought you’d abandoned me. It made me realize how much I don’t ever want to be alone again.”

He looked down at their hands, his thumb brushing absentmindedly over hers. He didn't want to be alone either.

“I wouldn’t hurt you though,” he said quietly, almost to himself. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“You know, you haven’t told me why you’re alone, out here in the woods,” she said, leaning forward in her chair. “What are you hiding from, Malfoy?” 

Everything seemed to close in on him. He could see the barmaid watching them out of the corner of his eye; her face twisted up in puzzlement as if she were making the connection. Draco pulled a handful of galleons out of his pocket and threw them on the table pulling Hermione up by the wrist.

“I’m not hiding,” he said, guiding her out of the tavern and to the edge of the village. “I just don't like answering everyone's questions. It’s getting dark,” he said, pulling her in against his side. “And I don’t feel like walking all the way home."

She hadn’t apparated in years and when they appeared in front of the cottage she nearly fell over, her head swimming, her stomach halfway up her throat. He hadn’t warned her that he was going to do it and the pulling and squeezing of their transport triggered some old fear inside her. The way he grabbed her arm and pulled her against his ribs, the smell of his cloak. And now, as he walked ahead of her into the cottage she stayed back, her hands shaking, her wand clutched tightly to her chest.

She remembered Voldemort; the battle at the Ministry, running through rooms filled with glass spheres, floating brains…a strange bird…it was dark and she’d been terrified. Someone had stunned her and it felt like she was dying.

“Hermione?” Draco watched as the color drained from her face, her mouth moving without making a sound, just like it had before when he’d scared her in the woods. For the life of him he couldn’t figure out what had stressed her so severely that it was triggering her again. “Are you OK?”

“There was a party, a party with Professor Slughorn…you…Filch brought you in…”

Again he felt the need to tug at his sleeve, to hide his arm although there was no way she could see the mark. Slowly she rattled off the events of their sixth year, right up to the failed attempt on Dumbledore’s life and the beginnings of the war. He could understood everything she was saying until she started crying at the end.

“They left me,” she said. “I gave up my family for them. I obliviated my parents and I told them I'd come back to help them…to fight alongside…and they left me.” She shook her head and crumbled to the forest floor, rocking back and forth. “I came back to Grimmauld Place and they told me they weren’t going back to school, that they were going to work for the ministry instead. No warning, no…nothing. It was like I didn’t…matter. I had no one. I was so…alone. I didn’t hear from them for months…”

He remembered what she was like their seventh year. He’d chalked her misery up to studying for NEWTs, the standard worries that were running their lives in their final year at Hogwarts. Countless times he’d seen her alone in the library, crying into her books, hunched over a parchment scribbling out angry letters. Word had spread fairly quickly that both Ron and Harry had been wooed by the Ministry to enter the Auror program early. Honestly, Draco wondered why Hermione hadn’t been asked as well but he’d just chalked it up to the old school attitudes of the current administration, thinking witches belonged in secretarial positions or running a home.

Hermione was still crying on the ground and he went to her, pulling her up to her feet and into his arms, holding her until her sobbing stopped, stroking her hair, imagining a world where he was a good man, where his comfort would actually do some good.

“What happened?” He asked, feeling her trembling, still clinging to his robes. Her hair smelled like vanilla and lavender again. “What scared you?”

“You…You…apparated. You side apparated and I wasn’t ready for it,” she muttered between stuttering breaths. “I haven’t apparated in years. I was scared.”

“I didn’t realize…I’m so sorry Hermione. I fucked up, I should have warned you. I was just getting nervous…I don’t like…”

She looked up into his eyes and the wind whipped her hair around her face. It was growing longer, enough that the curl was coming back, the dark locks framing her features.

“It’s ok," she said. "I didn’t know it would happen either.” She wrapped her arms tight around him, her chest pressed against his, their lips perilously close. In the cold, gathering dark her breath came out in little white puffs, her eyes glittering under the moon. “Thank you for helping me get my magic back. My magic, my mind. You keep saying you’re not an angel, but I can’t see you as anything less.” He pulled back from her but she pressed forward. “Maybe it’s time for you to stop being alone.”

He smiled but pulled her arms away from his back, holding her wrists tight in his hands.

“Hermione, I can’t,” he said, unable to simply let her go, unable to just walk away from her in the dark. When he spoke his voice was low, velvety, a shared secret between them. “But I promise you that when you remember everything about our seventh year...if you wake up one day and realize everything that happened and you still want to stay with me, I’ll take you in with open arms.”

 

They were walking through the woods looking for a tree to put up for Christmas. He hadn’t planned on celebrating but she insisted, giving him the wide blinking eyes and insisting it would be good for her therapy.

“Well aren’t you a manipulative little witch?” he’d said, pulling out his cloak and gloves.

It had snowed during the night and their boots crunched over the trail. Hermione brought her wand along and practiced levitating and cutting spells on some of the smaller trees, slicing off and collecting branches to dry for the fire.

“So why aren’t you living at the Manor anymore?” She asked while considering the shape and size of a small fir tree they’d come across.

“Things just got a little too tense between my mother and I while Lucius was in prison,” he said, making it clear that he had no interest in divulging too many details. “So when my father came home I just…realized it was time for me to move out. I mean, we’re not meant to live with our parents our whole lives are we?”

“No, of course not, but not everyone has a centuries old Manor to live in either." 

He cut down the tree in silence and hoisted it over his shoulder, heading back towards the cottage. 

“You know I’m not…I don’t like thinking about what I did during the war, what I fought for,” he said. “I tried making reparations. I tried doing the right thing. I turned on the Death Eaters, sent my father to prison for Merlin’s sake, but it still…” he looked right at her, his eyes cold and stony in the winter light. “It still eats at me every day. I was a kid. When I learned all those things, I just believed what I was told.”

Hermione said nothing, only looped her gloved hand through his elbow as they made their way back to the path.

“I knew that years ago you know; that deep down you were a good man,” she finally said, not knowing how her words sliced at his heart. “Harry and Ron, Neville…they thought you were just a beast, a demon, creepy…dark…”

“OK, I get it,” he snapped, but she could see that he was grinning.

“But I could just tell…I just knew there was something more to you. I knew you couldn’t be as bad as you wanted us so desperately to believe,” she said. “So when are you going to stop torturing yourself, putting yourself through this punishment? When are you going to stop living in isolation, tucked away in the forest?”

He lifted his wand to allow them both through the wards of the cottage and dragged the tree in through the front door.

“As soon I feel forgiven,” he said. And with a wave of his wand, the cottage was hidden again.

 


	10. Failed Glamour

She woke up early and went to the study to return some books and look for something new to read. Reviewing old textbooks and essays sometimes jogged her memories of spells and charms that she once knew, assignments she'd completed, things she’d once done. Besides, she needed something to take her mind off her failed glamours. Even with her new wand and more advanced charms the letters still showed through. She wondered if maybe it was all in her head and maybe they were hidden but it didn’t matter, she could cover them with thick layers of muggle makeup and still know they were there. And she still wouldn’t know why. 

The books on the shelves were all familiar to her in their sections and specific order, a system that Draco had taken the time to explain when he first invited her in. He was almost obsessively organized, the cottage spotless, everything in its place. By now she’d run her fingers over the old leather spines a thousand times, had the titles nearly memorized, but nothing grabbed her fancy. Her mind was too scattered, too many questions, too much anxiety.

There was a single framed picture on the wall beside his desk – Draco and Narcissa dressed to the nines at some holiday event. She was glowing, a big toothy smile, clinging to her son with her arm crooked through his elbow, but Draco had his usual slightly aloof expression, blank and uninterested. She watched the wizard photo loop its animation a few times before she noticed a final detail, but when she did it tugged at her heart. At the end of the loop a flash went off elsewhere in the room and she watched Draco flinch ever so slightly, his eyes closing, his fingers closing tight around his mother’s arm. It was strange. He’d always relished being the center of attention, sitting in the Minister’s Box at the World Cup, bragging about his elaborate birthday parties at the Manor, making sure everyone knew whenever his name was in the paper. But something had changed since she’d lost track of him. There was a tension, a deep seated fear of something and she watched it eat at him every day though it was clear he didn’t want to talk about it. She’d asked him once if he’d ever been in love and he’d told her about Astoria breaking their engagement, but even that wouldn’t be enough to put that haunted look on his face, to make him lose sleep six years after the fact. She wanted to help him. Give him something. He’d given up so much of himself to help her these past months, she wanted to return the favor.

Sitting down at his desk she spun in the old wooden chair for a moment before shuffling through the small stack of books that he’d been reading, ones that hadn’t yet been reshelved. Most of them were on potions, healing or the history of Wizard France, somewhere he said he intended to live one day. Remembering that conversation hurt her all over again, how casual he’d been at announcing it; that one day they would be separated and he’d be in a different country, going their separate ways once again. _After you’re feeling better of course._ She frowned and put the book back on the stack. It was clear he had no intention of keeping her in his life.

The second book from the bottom was worn, a battered spine with bits of parchment sticking out from different pages. _Maladies of Faulty Spells and Charms and Their Effect on the Wizard Mind_. He was right when he said some of these books were like sleeping potions. Even the title bored her, and she’d read some hefty books. Flipping through the pages, the book automatically fell open to a chapter on OBLIVIATION. The text was smeared with ink, underlined, circled, notes made in the margins.

> _*Never perform Obliviate on an unconscious wizard. The effects can be permanent and damage the brain beyond repair. (See Haverford Syndrome, page 453)_

Haverford Syndrome was circled heavily and she flipped to page 453.

> _Haverford Syndrome occurs when a witch or wizard is obliviated while severely impaired or completely unconscious. In this instance, the memories to be obliviated are not eliminated, but scrambled into existing memories, doing tremendous damage to the long term memory of the affected wizard._

She dropped the book on the desk as if it were a viper, her heart racing. This is what was wrong with her. Someone, somewhere had obliviated her but they’d done it wrong, or the spell went wrong…or she’d been…unconscious. Closing her eyes she willed herself to remember anything…anytime when someone would have done such a thing. It had to have been when she was with Harry and Ron, when they were away from school. Putting the book back where she found it, she slipped out of the study and went back to her room. Draco was still sleeping. She sat quietly and breathed, her eyes closed, searching, walking backwards through her life the best she could, but the only answer she was given was a hideous, swirling dark mark in the sky.

*****

“Why do you keep trying to hide that from me?” She asked.

He was standing in the doorway of her bedroom having brought her clean sheets. She’d been at the cottage for nearly two months now and she remembered almost everything about her first five years at Hogwarts and bits and pieces of the rest, including the day she’d first seen the mark on his arm. The Dark Mark itself had come to her in a dream weeks ago, during a memory of the Quidditch World Cup, the swirling serpent and skull in the sky, a fluttering smoky tongue taunting her from the sickly green grey clouds. Draco had warned her to leave, told her to hide, that the Death Eaters were coming for her. She’d always wondered why he would give her such a warning if he’d wanted her dead so badly. It was a question she’d never gotten the chance to ask.

It was during a study hour in the library sixth year that she’d seen it on his arm. He’d dropped a book and when he reached for it his sleeve slipped, revealing the edge of it. Seeing it there had broken her heart, like watching a bridge burn over a chasm. She’d always thought that one day he would realize that they weren’t so different, that he’d wake up and see that she was somehow…worthy of him…that they were worthy of each other...that he'd turn from a beast to a prince. Of course there was no way for her to explain her attraction to him to any of her friends. They couldn’t see anything but the Draco that Malfoy wanted them to see. He was good looking of course, smart, funny, and for some reason he smelled better than any of the other teenage boys she hung around with…but he was also bigoted and selfish, sarcastic, moody and sometimes downright cruel, but she’d always seen something else…something deeper, a streak of light. Living with him now she knew she’d been right. She’d just known him at the wrong time.

“I…it’s not something I’m proud of,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “I know that it…its hurtful to you so I don’t want you to have to look at it. It's like a stain..."

She approached him slowly and took his left arm in her hand, pulling it out straight. Since the end of the war the marks had all faded, no longer inky black but more like an irritated scar, an angry pink like the letters carved into her belly. She ran her fingers over the rough skin, feeling the tension in his twitching muscles, his pulse quickening. It was late afternoon and the room was filled with fading gold sunlight, his eyes like molten silver. 

“Hermione…”

“I haven’t been around you for years. I’m assuming you no longer believe in Pureblood Supremacy,” she said, still tickling her fingernails over his skin from the crook of his elbow to the palm of his hand. She could feel his warm breath on the crown of her head, smell his soap like cedar and leather. She’d been fantasizing about being this close to him for weeks now, remembering the dark and dirty thoughts she’d had about him while in school…tasting the forbidden fruit…dreaming about arguing with him until they finally kissed, sweeping all the books off of a library table and sprawling out beneath him. She’d even dared to touch herself while thinking of him, careful to stay silent beneath her blankets while he slept in the next room.

The idea of giving herself to a man used to terrify her. The thought of it made her feel trapped, a cold sweat prickling over her neck. But Draco was different. He made her feel beautiful. The way he looked at her, his tiny, private smiles, how he leaned forward to listen when she talked or said good night with a little incline of his head, it made her feel warm and wanted. But something was hurting him and she wanted him to feel better.

“I don’t…” he said, making a half hearted attempt to pull his arm away. His voice was barely a whisper. “I’m sorry, Hermione.”

She tipped her face up to look him in the eye, to give him an encouraging smile, her fingers slipping up to his bicep, under the sleeve of his t-shirt, stroking his skin.

“I’m sorry for the names I called you,” he said, “the horrible things I said about your family…your life. I’m sorry for the things I wished on you. I’m sorry for…everything…everything I did. I was a monster. I was kid and my father…”

She pulled at the back of his neck and kissed his mouth, her fingers threading through his hair as he groaned in surprise. He was frozen beneath her touch, his hands at his sides, his whole body rigid, uncomfortable, his lips closed tightly. 

“It’s OK Draco,” she said, stroking his cheek with her palm. “I forgive you. For all of it.”

“You shouldn’t,” he said, turning his face from her, closing his eyes. “You shouldn’t be…”

She kissed him again, both hands on his face. Her lips were so soft, so warm, her voice so soothing. He didn’t have to be a monster. He knew how to be gentle. She wouldn't have to be afraid of him.

“I don’t care what I _should_ do,” she said, combing her fingers through his hair. “I don’t care what I’m supposed to be like or who I'm supposed to be with. I’ve been thinking of you for weeks Draco.”

She kissed the pulse fluttering on his neck, the hollow of his throat. He clenched his fists tight at his sides, leaning against the door.

“I’ve been remembering that I wanted you before all this. I wanted you before, back when you called me names and hurt my feelings…even then I knew there was good in you. I wanted to find it.”

His eyes flew open, his mouth gaped in surprise and she took the opportunity to kiss him again, to slip her tongue between his lips, teasing him with a flicker over his own. Finally he started to melt, kissing her back. He brought his fingers up to brush over her cheek, his tongue tangling with hers, heat and need and adrenaline flooding his blood. With a few steps forward he had her against the wall and his kiss grew stronger, his hand in her hair, his hips pressed against hers.

“I’m sorry Hermione,” he said, his lips trailing down to kiss her neck. “I’m sorry for all of it.”

She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him closer, urging him on, tipping her head to offer him her throat. He licked her collarbone and his growl of desire sent a frisson of arousal down her spine. She was ready. She wanted him. She wasn’t afraid.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured, pulling at the buttons of her pajama shirt. “I want you to feel beautiful. Perfect.”

Her own hands slipped down to his waist, pushing his shirt up to let her mouth explore his bare chest, the heat of his skin, her tongue tracing the rough pattern of scars across his stomach. She moved to the waistband of his pants, slipping one hand inside, finding him already thick and hard, twitching in her palm. 

“I want you Draco,” she said, moving to kneel in front of him, and he gasped, almost as if she’d hurt him.

“Stop." His voice was harsh, too loud for how close they were, how quiet they’d been. When she looked up at him his face was ashen, his eyes closed, brow furrowed.

“Draco…”

He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her to her feet.

“I ca-can’t,” he said, smoothing her hair, tucking it behind her ear. His eyes that were burning with desire a minute earlier now looked exhausted, red rimmed and heavy lidded. “I can’t Hermione.”

She felt sick. She felt dirty and cold. His rejection stung worse than any insult he’d ever flung at her. Still, he held her there with her back to the wall, blocked in while his words tortured her. For a minute she felt nauseated, that cold sweat of fear on the back of her neck, a fear of not being able to get away. 

“I thought…I thought you…” she whispered, her voice cracking as she looked at the ground, their bare feet nearly touching. She’d wondered what it would be like to sleep beside him, their bodies wound together like vines, their skin touching, her head on his chest. “I thought you wanted…” 

He took her face in his hands, tipping it back so he could look into her eyes. She was surprised to find tears falling down his cheeks, his lip trembling.

“I want you Hermione,” he said, pressing his lips to her forehead, a tear dripping onto her shoulder. “I want to but I can’t. I don’t deserve…I’ve always wanted to be with you…” 

She shook her head, opened her mouth to protest but he stopped her, pressing a finger to her lips.

“There’s more for you to remember. Once you do, you’ll understand.”

“Then just tell me!” She said, suddenly angry enough to push him away. “What is it? Is there someone else? You’re married? I’m married? What else could there be? I’m diseased? Untouchable? Just tell me! What are these letters scarred on my skin? Is it that?”

“I…I can’t,” he said. “It’s not…I don’t…”

“You know what it is! You told me you know what these letters carved in my skin are. You know things about me that I don’t and you won’t tell me? Why?

He slammed his hand against the wall beside her head and she jumped, her eyes wide, her heart pounding with terror. 

“Because I don’t want you to hurt again! If you remember, you’ll be hurt all over again.”

Before she could say another word he stepped away from her and disapparated, the crack of his departure echoing in her ears.

*****

He was gone for the afternoon. No indication of where he’d disappeared to, but as the night crept in she began to worry that he would never come back. As irrational as it sounded, it was a fear so deep seated that she couldn’t shake it, being abandoned. To distract herself she ran a bath and washed her hair, made something for supper and had a cup of tea, but still he didn’t show. The old clock above the fireplace said eight thirty. For a while she watched out the window, but the snow swirling through the trees only frightened her more.

And then there were his words; his strange parting words before leaving her in complete confusion. What could it be that would hurt her all over again? Did she lose someone? Was her heart broken? Why would he know about it? He’d never been her friend. What did it have to do with the letters on her stomach? She gave up waiting and went to the study to pick up the book she’d found earlier. It wasn’t long before she fell asleep with the pages open on her stomach, her mind filled with the details of the disease she didn’t know she had.

It came to her in a dream…a bonfire full of friends…everyone she knew from school. It was…a celebration. Their graduation. And yet she was sad, she was alone, lonely. The memories were fuzzy, choppy, and she could tell that she was drunk, could remember the lurching stomach and spinning head, walking to the castle she’d seen a couple of people snogging near the lake…all wrapped up in each other, laying in the grass, it had broken her heart to see it. She had no one.

_I’m too tired to walk up these stairs. The stone is so cool…I could just lay here…_

_You can help me Draco. Help me back to my room. You can be – you can be my friend for one time._

_We have a nice place where you can rest._

Four boys. Slytherin ties. A long arm wrapped around her waist as she stumbled along with her head on his shoulder. He laughed at something and she looked up.

It was Draco.


	11. Remembered

Draco returned to the cottage much later than he’d intended. He knew as soon as he left her there that it was the wrong thing to do, that it would scare her to be left alone, to watch him just disappear with no explanation. But he couldn’t stay. He couldn’t be tempted by her for a second longer, her big brown eyes all but begging him to hold her, to take care of her…kiss her. And to say that she'd wanted him before? That she'd thought of him that way while they were in school? It had nearly buckled his knees to think of what he could have had.

So he went to the village, to the Dragon Claw, and drank far too much, letting the barmaid flirt with him all she wanted as long she kept bringing him drinks, but the whole time his thoughts were with Hermione. She was probably pacing the house, trembling, crying, and it was all his doing. Again.

“It's late, sweetheart. Why don’t you come upstairs with me,” the barmaid said near the end of the night, tickling her fingers through Draco’s hair. He was in a dark corner of the pub, away from prying eyes and she was taking advantage of it, her nails raking over his scalp and giving him goosebumps. His blood was still bubbling from his encounter with Granger and it had been so long. He’d been alone for so long. He'd behaved for so long.

“I shouldn’t…” he said, but he also didn’t resist as the girl swung her leg over his, straddling his lap, her breasts pushed up and out and right near his face.

“You’ve been watching me all night,” she said, leaning forward to nuzzle his neck, grinding against him, her hips rolling. He held tight to her waist, nearly begging out loud for his body not to react to her. He didn’t want to give in. She licked at his earlobe, her lips nibbled at his jaw. Perhaps he could pretend. He could close his eyes and pretend it was her, that they could be together freely, nothing hiding in the shadows.

“No, I have to go,” he said. Because when he closed his eyes he only saw Hermione, he only felt the differences of her mouth, her hands on his skin, gripping his hard cock and whispering that she wanted him. The barmaid wasn’t Hermione. He grit his teeth and tried to push her off. “Please.”

“Come on,” she whined, clearly undeterred, pushing down against his hardening prick. “I can tell you want it, and no one’s going to tell your girlfriend.”

He stood then, letting her fall to the floor in a heap, drawing looks from the rest of the patrons.

“She’s not my girlfriend. She’s my…” he trailed off, not knowing the answer. She was his victim, his patient, his friend, his fear. She was the love of his life and the one thing he couldn't have. She was everything.

“Just fucking go,” the barmaid hissed, pulling herself up and dusting herself off. “You didn’t have to be a dick about it.”

He frowned and pulled out a handful of galleons, ready to pay off another woman he’d disappointed, but she shook her head and pushed his hand away.

“I don’t want your money,” she said and he realized she wouldn’t look at him. She was thoroughly humiliated. “You people always think money will make you a white knight.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, touching her elbow. “I’m just not interested. OK?”

“Go,” she said again. Then added, “You could have just said that at the start. That is of course unless you like humiliating women. Maybe that's your...thing."

 

 

Walking back towards the forest he wondered if he should tell her. If he should just sit her down and tell her that he’d cut his initial into her skin, that he’d obliviated her and broken her mind. He should tell her that he’d raped her, that he'd hit her until her lip bled and left her battered on the floor at the base of the staircase. If he told her then at least she’d know. She would know and she’d leave him. She’d be safe from him and he could forget about her and they could both just start over fresh, get on with their lives and move on into the future.

The problem was that now, ever since she'd come to the cottage every time he imagined the future, even thought about going forward it was nearly impossible to imagine her not being a part of it. Even in the depths of her sickness and confusion, her knowledge that she had nothing and her life was a shambles, she had a light emanating from her that he could never find in anyone else. And he wanted it for himself. He wanted to see it every day, her smile, her laugh, her bright, clever mind. He was selfish and greedy, not wanting to share her with the world.

He was too drunk to apparate home and the walk took longer than he expected. Pushing his way through the tangled brush he was forced to imagine what it had been like for her, dizzy and exhausted, alone, walking towards the castle looking for help. She’d begged him for help. _Just be my friend._ He’d never forget how small and sad her voice had sounded, how he’d very nearly told everyone else to fuck off and just helped her to her room. Why did she think that about him? That he had any kind of good in him, after the way he treated her for years. Why didn’t she give up on him like the rest of the world?

He thought back to the barmaid, her sad face as she pulled herself together from being thrown to the floor. But instead of pity for her he felt anger. He was stronger than the barmaid and he could easily push her off and away from him, stop her from touching him, kissing him. She hadn't bound his arms in invisible rope or silenced him, locking the doors shut. She hadn't brought three other friends to make sure she got what she wanted.  And still, just remembering how she'd forced a reaction from him, made him hard, how she kissed him and he'd kissed back just to appease her...it made him sick. Hermione had kissed him back when he'd had her pinned beneath him. She'd tried her best to appease him without being able to say a word, without being able to move. She'd looked at him with soft, begging eyes, trying to make him see her and he hadn't. He'd been so blinded by frustration and anger and lust and drunkenness that he couldn't even see himself. He'd become something different. Like the werewolves in the forest. He'd been twisted inside out and he'd taken it out on her.

He had to tell her. He couldn't let her remember it alone.

He found his way back to the cottage and saw the food she’d left out for him, the half decorated Christmas tree sitting in the corner of the living room, the fire burnt down to embers, a book on the coffeetable. She’d given up and gone to bed. But at least she was still there.

And then she was screaming.

 

 

He raced up the stairs to find her sitting straight up in bed, her hair wild, eyes wide, her whole body trembling. Without a second of hesitation he went to her, pulling her into his arms, surprised at how she fell against him, clung to him as she cried, her face buried in his chest.

“It’s OK. I’m sorry Hermione. It’s OK, I’m back,” he said, wanting nothing more than to lay down beside her, pull her against him and fall asleep with his fingers in her hair, sinking into darkness as if none of this ever happened.

“I was afraid that you’d never come back,” she said, disentangling herself from his arms. “I waited up for you…I made dinner,” she thought for a moment before frowning at him. “I’m strong enough to take care of myself but the thought of you never coming back…”

“I know,” he said, taking her hand again, rubbing her knuckles with his thumb. “I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have stormed out, left without saying anything. I’m not used to having other people…”

“I remember the party,” she said suddenly. “The graduation party.”

He dropped her hand and stood, his stomach twisting with nausea, the way he felt when his broom suddenly swooped downwards during a game.

“I remember there was a bonfire and everyone was outside. I drank too much and I could barely walk back to the castle. I remember I was alone.”

Draco started pacing the room, chewing at the cuticle of his thumb.

 

He’d been the one to see her first, watching her struggling up the gravel coated walkway, wavering on her feet. How different their lives might have been had he just gone out to help her on his own. He could have just taken her hand and walked her back to her room, may he could have told her how he’d felt all those years.

“Blaise, mate, look at this,” he said, calling the others over. He'd only intended for them to have a laugh at her. It was only supposed to be a joke.

They’d all come back early from the bonfire with a plan to have drinks in the common room, maybe talk Pansy and Tracey into doing one of their strip tease acts that usually ended in at least one of them getting laid.

“What a miserable twat she is,” Nott had said, “can’t hold her liquor.”

“Says the man who puked on a third year Ravenclaw not a half hour ago,” Draco added drily, inexplicably irritated by his friend’s comment.

They all grinned as Granger made her way into the castle and stumbled to her knees at the base of the stairs.

“This could be fun,” Blaise had said, walking over first.

Draco followed him instantly, unwilling to be left out,  the kind of _fun_ his friend was going to suggest never even crossing his mind.

 

Granger brought him back to the present with her question.

“I asked you for help after the party, didn’t I? I asked you to help me back to my room.”

Draco sat down hard in the flowered reading chair by her fireplace. His mind was spinning, his heart pounding. It was as if he’d been holding his breath for six years, his lungs burning and about to burst.

“You did.”

“Did you help me, Draco?”

He looked up at her, feeling the tears sting his eyes, his heart aching as she searched his face for clues, and yet she hadn’t moved closer to him. She wasn’t the usual Hermione, rushing over to reassure him, to ask him why he was upset. She stayed in her spot on the bed, worrying the edge of the blanket between her fingers.

“No,” he said. “We didn’t help you.”

She thought for a minute and the silence weighed on both of them like hot irons, pure agony as he waited for her next question, as she postponed what she knew was inevitable.

“Who obliviated me?” she asked.

He was openly weeping now, his head in his hands, pulling at his hair, his shoulders shaking. She made no move to comfort him, gave no words of reassurance. She knew the answer, or rather suspected it, but she also knew he would have to say it himself. She needed him to tell her the truth.

“I did,” he said, staring at the floor. “I obliviated you the next morning.”

When he looked up she was nodding slowly, frowning. And then she laughed. She laughed the most sickening, horrifying laugh he’d ever heard, a cross between a sob and a manic giggle that she quickly squelched.

“You should have saved yourself the trouble,” she said, shaking her head. “Because it’s all put together now, that night…stumbling home, seeing you…and Blaise…and…” she furrowed her brow. “I've remembered all that I can, I remember waking up the next day with a dozen people around me pointing and laughing…but I was drunk. I was drunker than I’d ever been. Even if you hadn’t done it, even if you hadn’t blown my memory into a thousand tiny pieces, I still can’t remember what you did.”

His heart squeezed tight in his chest, his blood cold. It was like watching something fall from a great height and knowing you couldn't grasp for it, that you couldn't get it back, watching something shatter and knowing you pushed it over the edge. He sniffed up his tears and stood, taking a deep, cleansing breath, pulling himself together in precisely the way he used to watch his father do as a child, presenting himself as cool and collected. Whether she intended to let him see it or not, he noticed how she shrunk away from him. Frightened just from his standing up; it was enough for her to pull the blanket up a few inches, scooting back towards the headboard.

“Well I remember every minute of it Hermione. From the minute you looked at me and begged me to help you to the minute I dropped you on the staircase. It’s tortured me for years. It's why I'm here, it's why I live alone, hidden from the world. If you want to know what happened I can tell you. If you want to know why you’re terrified of men and don’t trust anyone; if you want to know why I hate that you call me angel and wince when you touch me, if you want to know why my initial is carved into your skin and you're scared of the tree branches grabbing for you in the dark I can tell you. But you’ll never be the same again.”

 


	12. Confession

She could have said no. In fact as he stood there in the heavy, painful silence, Draco begged her in his mind to just say no, to say that she couldn’t bear knowing the truth of what he’d done to her, that she couldn’t think of him doing those things, that she wanted to live in blissful ignorance. But that was because Draco was coward. He wasn’t a warrior like she was. He didn’t have her courage, her strength, her insatiable curiosity for truth. And so when she stood up and walked over to the door, locking them both in the tiny bedroom together; when she walked right up to him, looked him in the eye and said,

“Tell me,”

He’d barely even flinched.

“We were all drunk, just like you,” he began, flopping back down into the chair, afraid that his knees would buckle if he tried to stand for this confession.

Telling her he was drunk wasn’t meant as an excuse. It was simply a fact he wanted to relay, a detail she needed to know. These past years he’d spent alone he’d been reliving and rehashing every moment of that night so often that it played in his head like a movie now, fresh and bold and sharp every time he closed his eyes. Worse than a movie, he could remember the smells, the feel of her skin, the taste of blood on her lips. He even remembered the hours before they’d found her crumpled on the floor, when he’d been at the bonfire with the rest of the Slytherins, drinking and singing house songs and stumbling over the pitch…he remembered seeing her sitting alone, her lips turned down in a frown, her cheeks pink, eyes reflecting the gold of the fire. They'd even locked eyes for a moment, but when he'd raised his beer bottle to her she'd turned away. He’d remembered all these things enough to know that had he not been drinking there was no way he would have done it. It just wasn’t who he was. And then there were days that he wondered if maybe it was exactly who he was. Maybe his whole life of good manners and well-tailored robes, fine upbringing and education, maybe that had been nothing but a façade, a pretty little shell holding back the animal inside. 

She sat at his feet while he talked, her face blank, her eyes unblinking as he revealed every detail, how he thought they were going to lead her off into the back of the dungeons and leave her there, lost in the dark, how Draco honestly had no idea what Blaise had planned until he watched him tug at her jumper, pulling it over her head.

“You were just standing there, letting it happen,” he said. “Your eyes half open, your cheeks flushed pink, wavering on your feet. Blaise…he said that you’d always wanted him, he could tell.”

Draco closed his eyes, remembering how his hands had clenched into fists at his sides when Blaise kissed her neck, drawing a little squeal of surprise. He’d made a wet, sucking sound, leaving a dark bruise on the side of her throat…marking her. Draco hated the sight of it. But she’d giggled. She giggled and he found himself angry…at her.

“What? Why?” She asked, shaking her head.

“I don’t know why,” he snapped back at her, a little too quickly, too sharply for someone that he was trying to help. “I was..." 

He was jealous. 

“ _What…what are you doing, mate?”_ Draco had asked, laughing the whole thing off, trying not to reveal to the others how nervous, confused, jealous, aroused and angry he was. He barely understood it himself, how could he explain it to them?

“He kissed you again…on the mouth and you…you seemed OK with it,” he said. Hermione’s eyes widened, her mouth opening to protest but he held up a hand. “I know, I know. I’m just telling you what it looked like to us, to me.”

He paused, unsure of how to tell the rest, not wanting to look at her there on the floor like a child waiting for a bedtime story. The whole thing was so twisted up and wrong he could barely sit still.

“Tell me what happened next,” she said, her voice laced with quiet encouragement, as if he were the one who might be hurt by the words. “I need to hear all of it.”

“I pushed him away…Blaise,” he said, looking out the darkened window beside her bed. “I’d, I had wanted to kiss you for years, ages. I thought that if I ever even smiled at you my mates would never let me hear the end of it and here he was kissing you, taking your fucking clothes off...it wasn’t fair! It wasn’t fair that he could kiss you and not me.”

The words tumbled out so fast, as if he hadn’t even chosen them, they’d just burst free from his mind.

“That’s…that’s what my drunk brain thought,” he added. “So I pushed him away and I kissed you, on your mouth. You made a…you groaned like it felt good. You opened your mouth, you…put your hands in my hair…”

Both of them were taken back to their kiss in the doorway only hours before, their bodies pressed together, hot tongues and wet lips twisting and sucking, her hands running over his chest. It was surreal, unbelievable…impossible that the players were the same in each scene.

“I…I had wanted to kiss you too,” she said quietly, looking at the floor, running her fingers over the pattern in the carpet. “I was probably flattered, surprised. I was lonely without…them.”

“It wasn’t my idea Hermione…” he said, sliding down to sit in front of her on the floor, desperate for her to understand…as if it would have made a difference in how she felt. For a moment he wanted to take her hand, to hold it, but he knew better than to try and touch her now. “I didn’t want it to go that far.”

“Did I ask you to stop?” Her question was genuine, innocent.

She really didn’t remember how she’d begged him through her tears, looked to him…only him to rescue her. It wouldn’t make a difference if he told her that he’d almost left the room, that he’d thought the whole thing was too messy, too risky…until she’d looked at him, looked right at him and begged him to let her go, to tell the others to stop. He could remember snapping. How dare she? How dare she look to him to be the weak link, the soft-hearted Slytherin, a good boy. She knew better than that.

“We…I silenced you. You were bound, silenced, the door was charmed. You were…totally helpless.” 

She didn’t interrupt the rest of his confession, even when the details turned her stomach, when he admitted to hitting her, calling her names, drawing blood. By the time he got to the end of the story, explaining how she’d passed out when Blaise had…taken his turn…he was crying. Crying like a child, with huge hiccupping sobs, his face red and tear streaked.

“I just wanted to stop feeling so twisted up!” He said, jumping up and pacing the room again. “I was so desperate and angry and…confused. I’d hated you Hermione…everything about you…and I also couldn’t stop thinking of you, dreaming of you, wanting you, just to be around you. Nothing made any sense. Never mind that my whole life was falling apart outside of school…that I was basically being recruited to march off to my death.” Suddenly she could hear the rage, the anger and frustration in his voice, as if they’d gone back in time and he was feeling it all over again. He didn’t see her cowering, backing away from him. “I wanted you to feel, just for a moment, as broken and undone as I was…like it would make me feel better, stronger, like all of my misery would be transferred to you. But it didn’t. It wasn’t. I…felt worse.”

He hung his head, the words taking everything out of him, every ounce of strength and courage and empathy he could muster. And yet when the silence in the room finally settled he felt lighter, as if he’d exorcised a demon, purged poison from his blood. There was no way she’d forgive him for his crime and he would have to live with that, but at least he wasn’t hiding it from her anymore. At least she knew the truth. He’d fulfilled his promise. Her mind was healed, she had all of the pieces put back together now. That’s all he’d promised to do.

“And the letters…they’re initials, right?”

He’d almost forgotten that part…the scars on her belly that had mystified her for years.

“Yes. Goyle’s idea after you passed out. I would have…I tried to heal them but the blade was enchanted. The marks are permanent.”

“I know,” she said, her hand on her stomach. “I figured as much. I’ve tried to hide them, glamours, charms. I guess we both know what it’s like to wear a mark that won’t disappear. A mark we didn’t want.”

He wouldn’t look her in the eye, he couldn’t. Just hearing her sniffing up tears, sighing and whimpering when she heard the worst of what he’d done was enough to break his heart. They sat in silence for a long time, Draco wringing his hands, waiting to answer the rest of her questions, waiting for her to run, to scream, to kill him, waiting for any reaction at all. She was too calm, too quiet. 

“I was a virgin,” she said, looking down at her hands.

His stomach lurched and he stumbled back against the locked door, sliding down to sit against it, unsure of his balance.

“I’m sorry Hermione,” he said, so soft it was nearly to himself.

“I’ve never…not once in my whole life had sex with someone without being terrified. I don’t know what’s its like to feel…pleasure like that. I’ve never had someone want me to feel…The few times that I…when I went with someone in order to have a place to sleep or something to eat…I was always scared and I didn’t know why. Of course they all treated me like a whore, a worthless…”

“Stop,” he said. “Don’t say…”

She jumped up from the floor then and charged at him, standing over at him with her fists clenched, the anger rising in her voice with every word. 

“No! No, I won’t stop. How dare you ask me to stop! It’s you who did this to me! You’re the reason I had to sell my body on the streets! You’re the reason I’m scared of everyone, every man who crosses my path, but you don’t want to hear that? I can tell, Draco, that this hurts you. I can tell that you regret what you’ve done. I don’t doubt for a minute that you’re tortured by it, but now I’m here in front of you and you get to listen. You get to reap what you've sown, Malfoy. This is what happens when you and your friends gang rape someone and leave her obliviated in the hallway! For you it was one night. One night that you live over and over again and I’m sorry for that. But for me it was six years. Six years of not knowing why I was so…” 

He stood, afraid that he was going to throw up on her, afraid that he couldn’t be near her without collapsing in a heap. He had to leave. This was what he’d expected and now that she was screaming at him, her whole body shaking, her eyes fiery with rage, he couldn’t handle it. He didn’t want to see her this way. But before he could turn to leave the room, to unlock the door and hide himself away, she hit him. She slapped him hard across the face. Once. Twice.

“Why did you do this to me? Why did it have to be me? Why did it have to be you?”

He stood, silent and still, tears running down his face as she beat on his chest with weak fists, pushing him against the door. 

“I don’t want to think of you like that! I don’t want it to be true!” With one last half hearted push she looked up, staring at him with wide, watering eyes. “Why couldn’t you have lied to me?” She held tight to his robes, as if she’d fall, her voice quiet and shaking. She wasn’t angry anymore. She was sad, she was broken. She looked like a girl again, an eighteen year old girl. “Twelve hours ago I was in love with you. I was going to…I thought that you would be able to give me what I’d never had.” She pushed him away, wiping her eyes. “Why couldn’t you have lied to me?”

He closed his eyes, his head falling back against the door as he felt his heart fall to his feet. It was all he’d ever wanted to hear from her, and now it impossible to get it back, like watching a cloud float apart on the wind.

“I’ve loved you for years,” he said. “You won’t believe me but I…I still love you now. And one thing I will never do, ever again, is lie to you. No matter how much it hurts.”

“You've been lying to me every minute I was here. Get out,” she said, walking back to her bed, turning her back on him. “Just leave me alone.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say but I’m sorry. If I could undo what I did I would give everything I have…”

“You already tried that once,” she snapped, glaring at him from beside the bed. “Trying to hide your shame only made everything worse.” 

“Hermione…”

“Go,” she said calmly. But he didn’t move. He just stared at her with sad, pleading eyes until she picked up the book on her nightstand and threw it at him. _Maladies of Faulty Spells and Charms and Their Effect on the Wizard Mind_. The scraps of parchment he'd tucked into the pages fluttered out onto the floor, the broken spine of the book falling open to the chapter he'd read a thousand times. “I don’t want your apologies. I don’t want your help, and I don’t want…just GO!”

He kicked the book aside and unlocked the door, escaping to the safety of his room.


	13. The Soul Of A Man

For hours Hermione lay in bed staring at the ceiling, exhausted but unable to sleep. Her eyes and throat were sore from crying, her body aching, but her brain was working too hard, trying to find the memories of that single missing night, the horrifying images that went along with Draco’s words; but nothing materialized.

As he’d talked to her she’d gotten flashes, inconsequential things that her mind had held onto all these years, popping into her head at random times – the silky softness of the bed, a bright emerald green duvet. She remembered a pile of matching black luggage stacked near the door ready to go home, always assuming it had been hers. While he told her the tale she remembered that the room had been hot, the air heavy, the bitter taste of firewhiskey on someone’s tongue. And she remembered waking up in darkness, still unable to move, feeling a heavy arm across her stomach as Nott snored next to her in the narrow bed. She’d blinked and looked around the room for some means of escape and saw a figure slumped down in a chair holding a silver flask. Even in the dark, even in her drunken, broken state she could remember Draco frowning, staring out the single narrow window of his room, his cheeks streaked with tears.

The sun cracked over the horizon, casting the cottage bedroom in a muted purple grey glow and she knew she’d been awake the whole night, no closer to truly remembering, no closer to fully understanding, but shattered nonetheless. Eventually, her body won out, her eyelids falling shut, sending her into a fitful sleep. She tossed and turned, woken from odd dreams, a mix of things real and false, beautiful and horrific, her mind unable to reconcile that one person could be both. Turning over to reposition herself and rearrange her pillows she heard the front door squeak open and slam shut, signaling that Draco had left the cottage. She knew it would be a long time before he came back.

*****

He stumbled through the cold, shadow filled forest, sipping from the same flask his mother had given him for graduation, the same flask he’d held the night he’d taken Hermione’s virginity, marked her for life, stolen her mind. There was a thin line of script down the side of the silver container reading _The Soul of A Man. The Heart of A Dragon._ With his graduation date etched below. He rubbed his thumb over the words his mother had given him, wondering if maybe the attributions were reversed. Hadn’t he proved himself a fire breathing beast? Bloodthirsty and merciless? Wasn’t it entirely possible that he didn’t have a heart at all? Perhaps it was for the best that Astoria had broken their engagement, perhaps a cowardly, violent liar like himself was destined to be alone, a self imposed sentence to keep the women of England safe.

The walk to the village seemed longer than usual and he emptied the flask along the way, taking the last shot of firewhiskey just as he walked beyond the stone wall marking the town boundary. It was where he’d first found her, spoke to her, pressing coins into her palm. It was where she’d first called him Angel and he remembered how her smile, her gratefulness and bright brown eyes had warmed his heart.

The sun was up but it was barely nine o’clock and every store he wandered up to was still shuttered for the night or the workers inside were ignoring his drunken pounding, yelling for them to open up, he had more money than Merlin and he just needed Firewhiskey!

“If you knew who, Hey!…If you…know…knew my name you’d open these doors! If you knew what I was capable of! OPEN UP!”

Down the street he could hear the door of the Wizard Market slam shut. A witch inside the teashop shook her head and closed the shades on her windows with a flick of her wand. Flipping her off with a two finger salute he continued down the street, stumbling over a crack in the sidewalk and swearing at it, firing hexes at sign posts and dampened street lamps, grumbling to himself. The wind kicked up and he pulled his cloak tighter around him, suddenly feeling dizzy, his stomach rumbling with hunger and his head pounding with exhaustion. He made his way to the bakery and sat on the stoop, leaning against the wall of the alcove to rest. Within minutes the proprietor swung the door open wide.

“Hey. Hey you, come on, get up. You can’t be begging here.”

Draco stood, feeling his cheeks burning with embarrassment. He’d never been so humiliated.

“I’m sorry. Sorry. I was just getting out of the wind for a minute.”

“Listen, there’s a healer house around…”

“I don’t need your charity!” Draco spat at him as he stood and straightened his cloak. “I could buy this bakery and shut it down before the sun sets tonight you miserable, pinched faced twat."

“Get out!” The baker yelled, clenching his fists.

If there was one thing Draco was not interested in today it was a fist fight, and so he waved a hand at the man and stumbled back down the stairs, noticing that right across the street was the pub. There would be enough firewhiskey at the pub.

He shuffled into the Dragon Claw at a little after noon, his eyes red and stinging, his hair a mess. The barmaid came out from behind the bar with a frown of concern.

“What’s happened to you?” She asked, as if the night before was entirely forgotten. “What’s wrong?”

“I need a room,” he said slowly. “I need a bath, something to eat. I’m…I need…” He swayed on his feet, barely able to hold his eyes open, suddenly hit with the weight of his drunkenness that equaled the pressure of his despair.

“OK baby,” she said, pulling a key from a pocket in her apron. “Follow me, Mr. M.”

But before she could pass him and make her way up the stairs he grabbed her elbow, spinning her around, his lips near her ear.

“Bring up a bottle of firewhiskey,” he purred. “Maybe I can make some amends.”

The barmaid smiled and winked, summoning a bottle from behind the bar and making her way up the stairs.

 

****

Hermione woke up a little before noon, her head pounding and sore from a night of crying, her throat dry. She lit the fire and heated water for tea, finding the note he’d left for her while she pulled down a mug from the cupboard.

_Hermione,  
_

_I’m sorry._

_I think it’s better if I leave for a while. The cottage is yours; you’re safe there, no one can find you. There’s a small black bag of money in the wooden box on the mantle. Its magically linked to my vault and will replenish itself as needed. I won’t be far. I do want to see you again, to talk to you more. I do want a chance to say good bye. And to say I’m sorry again._

_When you’re ready._

_I love you Hermione,_

_Draco_

 

The last words of the letter blurred as her eyes filled with tears. His absence shouldn’t have caused a pit in her stomach, a gaping emptiness in her heart. His leaving should have filled her with relief, but instead she was sad. She was lonely and afraid and she wanted him there to comfort her. Sitting down with her tea she found herself at war as she stared into the fire. Every time she heard the words he said, things like _“you wouldn’t be quiet and I slapped you,”_ she would feel her eyes well up with tears but then her brain would show her an image of Draco helping her up off the forest floor, carrying her sick body towards the cottage. He’d held her down, he’d forced himself on her, his mouth, his fingers, his penis….and yet she couldn’t remember it, not even a moment. Even now, when she had all the details she could only remember him sitting quietly and letting her cry on his shoulder when she remembered the death of Dumbledore. She remembered him defending her in front of the cruel shopgirls in town, how he only had eyes for her whenever they walked through the village. She remembered him whispering in her ear _“I want you to feel beautiful.”_

He made her feel beautiful. 

She looked up at the fragrant Christmas tree, a few paper ornaments and charmed pinecones scattered on the boughs. He’d promised her he’d find a way to light it, that by Christmas morning it would be perfect. Christmas was her favorite holiday as a child and although Draco hadn’t celebrated it over the past five years, he’d vowed to give her the best Christmas of her life, there in the little cottage, to make up for the ones she’d lost. The ones, she realized now, he had taken from her. She stood and ran her hand over the soft pine needles, twisting the points of a paper star between her fingers. Her eyes caught a little package tucked deep in the tree, balancing on the Y of thick branch, wrapped in gold paper with a white bow, a tag dangling from the ribbon.

_“To Hermione. Love, Draco.”_

Love.

Every time she tried to freeze her heart, to taste the bitter bile of hate on her tongue, she could only remember his tearful admission, _“I’ve loved you for years, Hermione…I still love you now.”_

She left the package in its hiding place. Christmas was only seven days away.

 

****

 

The barmaid helped him into the room at the end of the hallway, a spacious, darkly paneled room with a four poster bed, a fireplace and a white iron bathtub, three charmed faucets hanging from the ceiling to fill it. He sat down hard on the edge of the bed and she unbuttoned his cloak, pushing it off his shoulders. With a flick of her wand, the faucets rattled to life, filling the bath with steaming, fragrant water. 

“Where’s the firewhiskey?” He asked, reaching for the bottle that she’d summoned.

“Downstairs, love. This is water,” she said. Then, pulling a vial from her apron she emptied it into a goblet and handed it to him. “This is a hangover potion. Drink.” 

“I’m not too drunk to get it up, sweetheart. Give me your hand, I’ll show you.”

“I'll take your word for it, Mr. M. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

He scowled at her but allowed her to unlace his boots and unbutton his shirt, liking the feeling of being nurtured, taken care of. Her busy work around the room reminded him of the time he’d caught the flu and his mother had taken care of him herself instead of leaving it to the house elves. _Sometimes a boy just needs a mother.  
_

The hangover potion worked slowly through his blood, making his head pound as his body detoxified. His mouth was dry, his stomach rumbling. She’d gotten his shirt and shoes off and stood back, her arms crossed over her chest. He realized for the first time that she was beautiful…in a way that wasn’t Hermione. Her hair was auburn, with dark purplish red streaks in it, bright aqua colored eyes and creamy skin. She was older than him, but not by much, and he regretted how poorly he’d treated her over the last year or so.

“What’s your name?” He asked, flopping back on the bed to keep from throwing up. He was feeling better, but not by much. “It just occurred to me I never asked your name." 

“Amalthea.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Draco Malfoy.”

“No kidding,” she said, snorting. “Come on, get in the bath.”

He stood then, the potion having worked through his blood, feeling a bit more energetic, a bit more powerful. He backed her up against the door and held her face in his hands.

“You’re a brave girl to be in a room alone with me,” he said, bending down to kiss her, a soft, languid kiss, his tongue stroking slowly over hers. “With a dragon.”

For a moment she kissed him back, but he was surprised when she pushed him away.

“Get in the bath, dragon. You smell filthy and your breath is shit.”

 

****

 

He sunk into the water, groaning with relief as it wrapped around his cold muscles and frozen toes. She stood behind him, outside the bath, pouring water over his hair and scrubbing it clean with shampoo that smelled like apples and ginger.

“What happened? Did you fight with her?” She asked, her fingers massaging his scalp, the back of his neck. It was like she was putting him in a trance.

“We…yes. It’s over. I’ve lost her,” he said, the words cracking as his throat tightened.

“Do you love her?” Amalthea asked, rinsing the soap from his hair, scrubbing his back with a flannel.

“I do,” he said. “I’ve always loved her.” 

“Does she love you?”

“No,” he answered immediately. But after a moment he sighed, covering his face with his hands. “She said she did. Up until yesterday she did. Now it’s over.”

“You’ve been coming to this pub every week for more than a year,” she said, rinsing the suds from his skin. “Always sitting in the same spot with a book or a parchment, scowling, pouting, being a general pain in the ass.”

“Why thank you,” he said, sarcastically.

“But in the last two months, you’ve started coming here with her. And I can tell by the way you look at her that you love her, and the way she looks at you? The way she touches you, smiles at you? I know who she is, Draco. She’s the lost girl that was wandering around in the streets. You saved her. Maybe she was supposed to save you.”

She summoned a towel from the cupboard against the wall and set it on the table beside the bathtub, pressing a chaste kiss to his temple.

“You don’t just turn love on and off like that,” she said, drying off her hands. “I’m going to get you something to eat. Go lay down.”

“She told me to leave. She wouldn’t accept my apology,” he said, not moving from the bath, just staring into the low crackling fire that warmed the room.

“She’s angry with you,” Amalthea said quietly. “It’s a wound that has to heal. She can love you again, you just have to give her time.”

 

****

 

Once he’d eaten, Draco felt more like himself, although it was a small consolation. He stretched out on the bed in his underwear, staring out the window that looked out over the forest. It was dark, and he wondered what Hermione would be doing. Or if she was even still at the cottage.

Once her shift was over down in the pub, Amalthea came back to check on him, bringing him one shot of firewhiskey. 

“Hair of the dog to help you sleep,” she said, setting it on the nightstand beside his bed.

Draco grabbed her wrist before she could leave, rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand.

“There are better ways of getting tired,” he said, pulling her down to sit on the bed, leaning in to kiss the skin of her shoulder, the side of her neck.

“Of course there are,” she whispered, untangling herself from his grip. “But fucking me won’t make you forget how much you miss her. I can promise you that, love.”

He flopped onto his back, huffing out a sigh of frustration and she could see that there were tears in his eyes, his lip trembling. She climbed into the bed beside him and pulled him over to lay his head in her lap, running her fingers through his silky white hair.

“It’s probably better you try not to make more mistakes while on the road to fix the ones you’re already suffering.” She said, tickling her fingers over his back. She pulled the blanket up to cover him, putting out the lights with a flick of her wand.

“I’m sorry for how I’ve treated you, Amalthea,” he said in the darkness, and she could hear the exhaustion slurring his words. “I’m sorry for hurting you the other night, pushing you, embarrassing you.”

“Don’t worry about me Mr. Malfoy, it comes with the territory. I wasn’t planning on loving you like she does. I was just wondering what you’d be like.”

“Trust me, I’m not worth it,” he said, the words trailing off into nothing.

His eyes fluttered shut and he wrapped one arm around her hips, muttering things she couldn’t understand until he finally whispered, “Hermione,” with a finality and clarity that made it sound like she was the answer to everything.

She sat in the darkened room with him, stroking his hair, humming a song her mother had taught her until the fire burned down to embers and she felt the slow, deep breathing that told her he was finally asleep.


	14. Morning Snow

With Draco gone, Hermione quickly adapted to the life of a comfortable hermit. The cottage was warm, the cupboards well stocked and the bed was comfortable, although her nights were fitful and she often woke herself with crying. On the longest nights she would find herself wandering into Draco’s bedroom and laying in his bed, wrapped in his sheets just to smell him on the linens, pulling his pillow into her arms and pretending it was him. She slept better when she could smell him.

With nothing to do she cleaned the cottage from top to bottom, re-shelved and reorganized the books in the library, carefully putting the book of Maladies back together, repairing the cover where it had torn when she’d thrown it at him. She even scrubbed the tile floor in the bathroom knowing a scouring charm could have done it just as well. She did anything she could to keep her mind occupied, to stay focused on something that wasn’t Draco, anything to keep her out of the tangled weeds that were her feelings for him.

To fill her days she practiced transfigurations with mugs and shoes and lit the fireplace with an incendio charm. Each day she worked on levitating a full cup of tea without spilling or turning to the exact page in a book on the first try. And while she soaked in the bath at night she forced herself to remember more details about school; about her time with Harry and the safety and warmth she felt with him, the close friendship they’d shared. She remembered Ron as well, a friendship that had turned into something more…not quite undying love, but a youthful…romance that had made her happy for a while. Of course then she remembered the darker days. She remembered battling Voldemort until he finally went into hiding, the preparation for the war, the armies of Death Eaters that used to sweep through the towns…Harry and Ron leaving her to work for the Ministry and the fights they’d had before they left. How could they have known that they’d never see each other again?

The more she made herself remember, the lonelier she became.

On Christmas she woke to find the bright sky swirling with snow, little sparkling drifts piled into the corners of the windows while wind rattled through the panes. Where would she be during a storm like this if Draco hadn’t found her, taken her in, nursed her back to health?

Then again, where would she be if he hadn’t obliviated her in the first place?

She sighed and pulled herself out of bed, already exhausted by the back and forth her brain put her through every day; the tug of war between love and hate, revenge and forgiveness, the boy Draco was versus the man that he’d become. Every day she split her time between hoping he’d walk through the door and wishing he’d never come back. What was clear was that she missed him. She missed him and it broke her heart to not be with him on Christmas. All they had anymore was each other, regardless of how they got that way. The past could not be undone.

Sitting down on the sofa she looked at the package twinkling from the branches of the wilting pine tree. Allowing herself a moment of levity she smiled and reached for the gift, running her fingertips over the hand written tag as if she could absorb some of him, transfer his essence through the shiny black ink letters that made up his name. Inside the package was a stack of pages torn from a book. Each one had photos, all taken in a dark, sepia tone, a little piece of curled parchment placed on top.

> _“These are from the Hogwart’s Annual Archive from our fourth year. I hope they can help you remember more of our time at school. Make sure to take note of Harry’s hair in the last one, it's a treasure in itself._
> 
> _The book itself was damaged in the war, but I saved these pages – and only these pages – for some inexplicable reason_ _: )  
>  _
> 
> _I love you,_
> 
> _Draco”_

Wiping tears from her eyes, Hermione flipped through the pages stacked in the box with their torn, charred corners and yellowed edges. There was a picture of the whole class standing in the Great Hall, a picture of the members of Gryffindor house, a candid shot of Hermione, Dean and Ginny in the greenhouse, their faces smudged with dirt as they smiled, holding some newly potted Germander plants. Near the back there was a photo of a group of students dancing at the Yule Ball with Hermione and Victor Krum talking with their heads together, sitting at a table off to the side. As she shuffled back and forth through the memorabilia she realized that Draco was only in three or four of the group pictures but it was easy to see why he’d saved the pages he had…Hermione was in every single one.

Stacking the paper back in the box, she pulled the bag of galleons down from the mantle and went back upstairs to change and bundle herself against the cold. The wind was howling, the forest trails swept away, buried beneath a blanket of snow, but it didn’t matter. She needed to see him.

 

****

 

Amalthea made him get up and leave the room at least once every day. She did her best to make him eat, make him bathe and while he spent the majority of his time sulking, she even made him work, sending him on mindless errands or asking him to help her crimp the pastry on her rabbit and turnip pies…anything to keep him from falling back down into the darkest hole. Of course he grumbled about it, declared everything she suggested to be beneath him, but eventually he did the right thing. Draco Malfoy was never going to be the sweetest man on the planet, but Amalthea assured him that no one would be very interested in that Draco Malfoy anyway.

“Just come downstairs and have a glass of champagne with everyone,” she said, picking up the tray of half eaten dinner from his room.

As usual he was sitting in the chair by the fire, curtains drawn, a half empty bottle of firewhiskey on the table beside him.

“Why?” He muttered, emptying the glass in his hand. “I don’t know anyone down there.”

“Because it’s Christmas Eve. Because you can’t live here for the rest of your life. Because you look pale. Paler.”

He snorted, stood up and shook his head at her as he shuffled toward the bed. In only a week it looked like he’d lost ten pounds, his eyes dull, circled in dark, purplish shadows. He hadn’t shaved and his hair was a mess as he spent most of the day in his bed pouting.

“Merry Christmas, Thea,” he said, kissing her quickly on the cheek. “But I haven’t celebrated in years.” He paused, looking out the window towards the old stone fence that circled the perimeter of the little wizard town. “I don’t see a reason to start now.”

****

 

Hermione trudged through the storm wrapped in her cloak, wearing two of Draco’s sweaters and a thick knit cap she’d found in the closet. It didn’t occur to her until she turned back to see how far she’d come that Draco hadn’t told her how to break through the wards of the cottage or even how she could find it again if she walked out the door. Now she was just staring back at a grove of trees, snow sparkling in the sunshine, the cottage completely hidden. She had no choice but to find him.

Even on Christmas the town was bustling, families walking briskly up and down the cobblestone streets decorated with green swags and red ribbons, floating candles that stayed lit even in the snow. Everyone who passed her wished her a Merry Christmas, gave her a warm smile and while she politely greeted them in return she couldn’t help but feel a pang of bitterness towards them, wondering how many of these same people had shooed her away, stepped over her as she sat on the sidewalk. How many of these smiling wizards had called her a crazy person, calling for her to be thrown out of town?

Her first stop was the Healing House, where the baker had told her to find help so many months ago. She held out little help that Draco would be there, but she had to start somewhere. They weren’t busy and a healer elf took the time to make Hermione a cup of tea and offer her some biscuits.

“No, we haven’t had anyone like that in here, miss,” said one of the house elves, setting down a bowl of sugar. “But there are two other inns in town."

“Yes I know, I just…I wanted to check here first in case something bad had happened to him. In case he was hurt.”

“Sad, so sad miss,” the elf said, shaking her head. “To be alone on Christmas." 

After a polite sip or two of her tea and a hefty donation to the healing house from Malfoy’s bag of money, Hermione bundled up and stepped out into the afternoon sunshine. The storm had stopped and the sun glittered off the snow covered streets and roofs like diamonds. In the distance she could hear a group of people laughing. There was music coming from a flat above one of the shops and she could see candles and brightly decorated trees in the windows of other homes, packed full with families and friends…carefree and joyous, warm and cozy.

“Hermione.”

She looked up to see the barmaid, the one who flirted with Draco every time they’d gone to the pub. She was sweeping snow of the stoop of the Dragon Claw, wearing a brightly colored scarf wound three times around her neck and a bright red dress with gold trim. She hadn’t remembered giving the barmaid her name.

“Yes?” Hermione said, stepping closer.

“He’s here,” was all the barmaid needed to say before Hermione bustled past her into the warmth of the pub, empty but for a small table of wizards gathered around the fire with mince pies and pints of ale.

“Where is he? Is he ok?”

“He’s upstairs, and I suspect he’ll be better once he sees you. Can I get you a drink before you go up? He’s in the last room on the left.” 

“No,” Hermione said, shaking snow from her hair and unclasping her cloak. “Thank you – “ she held her hand out. 

“Amalthea,” the barmaid said, shaking her hand. But before Hermione could let go Amalthea tugged her in close, her eyes going a bit dark, protective. “If you’re going up there to make him feel worse, to lay into him on Christmas, I’ll hex every hair off your head. He’s tortured himself enough this week. So if your intentions are to reopen the wounds just turn around and go back home, I’ll take care of him myself.”

“I…” Hermione was shocked speechless. She wondered what she was in for, what condition Draco was in and what the girl had done for him. But most of all she was filled with thick, noxious jealousy, a rage that she couldn’t articulate. How dare she take care of him, how dare she stand between them, how dare she try and steal… 

“You are everything in the world to him,” Amalthea hissed, surprising Hermione with her intensity, the strength of her grip on her hand. “He calls for you in his sleep. He cries for you when he’s alone, carries a picture of you folded up in his cloak pocket. And I know that he hurt you somehow. Badly. But some of us out here can only dream of feeling the love and devotion he has for you now.” She let Hermione’s hand go and straightened out her apron, suddenly all bright and shiny again, her smile wide. “Just wanted to let you know, love.”

And she swept off back into the kitchen.

 

****

 

His plan had been to drink enough to sleep right through Christmas entirely.

Unfortunately Amalthea had found his draught of dreamless sleep vial while cleaning the room a few days earlier and confiscated it, tucking it away in her apron which seemed to have an endless number of bottomless pockets.

“I’ll give you HALF of this before bed,” she said, preparing his bath. “But I don’t trust you with the whole bottle, darling.”

“I’m not a child,” he growled through gritted teeth, but she wasn’t deterred.

“Could have fooled me. This room is a pigsty which is impressive for a man who walked in here with nothing. You actually had to go out and buy a mess.”

For a moment he watched her bustle around the room, humming old Christmas carols to herself, folding up towels and blankets, picking up socks and empty bottles from the floor. 

“I don’t deserve any of this kindness you know,” he said, turning to stare out the window. He’d taken to watching the roads to and from town, specifically the narrow trail that lead from the low stone wall to the forest. But it was always empty.

“Yes yes,” she sighed, not even looking up at him. “Every time you tell me this I remind you that I decide who gets my kindness, and if you’re paying for room you automatically get the cleaning service. However I HAVE had just about enough of your self loathing for today Mr. M, so I’ll take my leave. You can come downstairs if you want something to eat.”

As promised she’d let him have one night of blissful oblivion ( _my Christmas gift to you, love_ ), no dreams of Hermione screaming, watching her straining against invisible ropes, no visions of her tearful face demanding that he leave her alone, no memories of her telling him that she’d fallen in love with him. That she’d wanted him, and he’d ruined it. But he’d woken before dawn and unable to rest, he lit the fire and pulled the armchair over to sit, staring into the flames that put him into something of a trance. He wondered if she’d opened his gift, whether she understood why he’d saved those precious pictures of her from so many years ago. He’d found the Archive during his Wizengamot ordered work rebuilding Hogwarts, stacking and repairing books from the library, including the yearbooks that were compiled and sold each spring. There were pages he hadn’t given her, from their Sixth year, when she’d bloomed into an incredible beauty. He saved her prefect portrait, a picture of her bundled up and smiling at a Quidditch match and a picture of her at a Gryffindor Christmas Party in a beautiful and sophisticated gown that looked like a diaphanous black fog wrapped around her pale skin, light and fluttering. He’d always wondered what the fabric had felt like.

He pulled his hidden bottle of firewhiskey from behind the bookcase and drank deep, right from the bottle, watching the sun finally emerge from thick clouds of the storm. In the sunlight the whole world looked white and pure. It was as if the universe had granted them all a clean slate, a chance to begin again.

There was a knock at the door and he groaned, setting the bottle down beside his chair and pulling himself to his feet.

“I’m not coming down to eat mince pies with you Thea – I told you that I – “

“Draco?”

He froze midstep, his heart fluttering at the sound of her voice, breath caught in his lungs. He had to be dreaming. He had to have fallen asleep watching the fire. With two long strides, nearly leaping across the room he pulled the door open and saw her, lit up like an angel in the winter sun that filtered through the dusty windows, her cheeks pink with cold, her eyes bright with tears. When she smiled at him her lips trembled with tension – but it _was_ a smile.

His appearance startled her. She’d seen him tired. She’d seen him drunk. She’d seen him lazy and upset and flustered, but it was as if all of those things had hit him with their combined strength and left him a husk. He looked too thin, his hair mussed and dull, hanging in front of his eyes. He hadn’t shaved in days and his cheeks were covered with a dark golden scruff. And his eyes, those beautiful silver grey eyes that she dreamt of, that she saw burning into hers every time she imagined him…they were sunk into dark sockets and rimmed red, no mischievous glitter to them, no sparking intensity. He shook his head at her as she stepped in past the threshold. 

“My God, Hermione…”

He fell to his knees in front of her, wrapping his arms around her waist, his head on her stomach as he sobbed. Sobbed like a child, his fingers digging into her back. Unsure of what to do, what she could say, she stroked his hair and let him cry.

“I would never have imagined…” he said, still clinging to her. “I’m so sorry Hermione. I’m sorry for everything.”

“I know you are Draco. Don’t do this. Get up.”

He stood, doing his best to compose himself, offering her a weak smile. 

“C-come in. Here, sit…do you want something to drink?”

She shook her head and they fell back into silence. Staring, frowning.

“I’ve tried so hard to hate you,” she whispered, as thought it were a secret she were revealing. “I thought it would be so easy to hate you when you weren’t around. It would be easier to…turn you into a villain, to remember you how I’m supposed to remember you.” She walked past him and took off her cloak and the first of her three sweaters. His room was cluttered and far too warm and it gave her something to do. “I didn’t want to forgive you for what you’ve done. I shouldn’t forgive you for it. I know that.”

“You’re right,” he said, shouldering past her towards his chair. He reached for his whiskey bottle.

“Put that down and just listen to me. Don’t sit there and feel sorry for yourself. Just listen.”

She sat on the edge of the bed and indicated that he could do the same.

“But we’ve lived two different lives since then, haven’t we?” She said, lacing her fingers through his. “We’re two completely different people. And we were those people when we met, when you saved me, pulled me out of the snow.”

He nodded, looking down at their hands, their skin touching, their bodies so close he could smell her hair again.

“And I know that you’re sorry for what you did. Not only for…that night but for obliviating me.”

“Yes,” he said. 

“Why did you obliviate me?” She asked, staring straight ahead, not wanting to see his face when he answered. “Was it so I wouldn’t name you? So I couldn’t point fingers?”

“No. I mean yes, of course that was part of it. I knew that what we did was wrong and if you told anyone we’d be sent to Azkaban.” He let go of her hand and stood, pacing again, as he’d done every night since he’d left her, his footsteps matching the racing thoughts in his mind. “But I also healed your bruises. I tried to heal the letters from your stomach. I knew that as badly as I felt, coming to my senses and realizing what had happened…as sick as that made me…I knew you’d feel worse. I wanted to do something…I only wanted you to forget…me.”

She nodded, running her fingers over the flowered pattern on the duvet.

“I opened your gift. The pictures,” she said, finally offering a smile. “Thank you. They’re wonderful. Did you mean it?”

“Mean what?” He asked, thinking back to what he’d written, wondering what could be misunderstood.

“You wrote I love you at the end of the note.”

“Yes Hermione,” he said, racing over and kneeling in front of her, the great Draco Malfoy, pureblood wizard, begging at her feet. “Don’t you understand why this has ripped at my soul for so long? Why I nearly lost my mind when I found out you’d disappeared? I don’t know what’s wrong with me…what’s broken inside of me that I could hurt you like that when I loved you so much but I know now that’s why. And I want to fix it, I want to make it right, because I do. I do still love you.”

She put her hand on his cheek and he leaned against it, the warmth, the softness of her palm. He fell against her legs, his head resting on her knees.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me, either. But there's nothing I can do about it,” she said. “I love you too. I want you to come home,” she said, stroking his hair, the back of his neck. Outside the shadows were stretching over the snow in the fading sunlight, the sky was finally clear and turn a vibrant purple as the first stars came out. “But not tonight. Maybe tonight I can just stay here with you. We can eat and drink and watch the fire. I can teach you old muggle Christmas Carols...” He looked up at her and she smiled. “I just don’t want to think about any of this anymore today. I don’t want to be confused anymore, wondering if what I'm feeling or doing is right or wrong.” She ran her fingertip over the outline of his lips. “I just want to be here with you.”

Draco closed his eyes again, desperate to remember every moment of this brief reconciliation. He knew that in the morning she would come to her senses and be gone again; but not now. Right now he could pretend that everything was perfect.

“Draco?” He looked up at her and she smiled. Then without warning she leaned down and kissed him; soft and brief, just a quick press of her lips to his. “Can I stay?”

He stood then and pulled her into his arms, nearly crushing her against his chest, kissing the crown of her head when she sighed with relief.

“Please,” he murmured into her hair. “Please stay. Please stay here with me.”

A knock shook them back into reality and Amalthea called to them through the door. 

“There’s a tray out here with some food, loves. Just some sausages and cheese, a few sweet treats, a bottle of wine, nothing too fancy. You just let me know if you need anything else.”

“Merry Christmas Draco,” Hermione whispered against his chest.

Outside he could hear bells, the harmonies of the carolers and downstairs the wizards by the fire were laughing. He pulled her close in the tiny room above the pub and sighed with contentment. Feeling suddenly like he had all the strength of the world.

“Merry Christmas Hermione."


	15. Something You've Never Had

Draco brought the tray of food in from the hallway and poured her a glass of wine while she took off her heavy, wet boots and ran her hands through her cold, damp hair in attempt to look presentable after being crushed beneath a hat all day.

“Maybe we can try again next Christmas,” he said, his voice so strained with tension that it cracked. “I promised you –“

“Having myself put back together, no matter how painful it is…that’s gift enough for me. I couldn’t have done it alone.” She held her glass up and offered a smile. “A Christmas Miracle.”

“It’s a miracle that you’re even here…that you’re speaking to me at all,” he said, running a shaking fingertip over the rim of his glass.

“Don’t,” she said, moving to sit beside him near the fire. They were close enough that their legs were touching and it sent a wave of warmth through her blood. “I don’t want to talk about that tonight.”

So they ate and drank and Draco told her about rebuilding the school after the war. He told her about the books and paintings and artifacts he’d saved, how they’d repaired the telescope in the astronomy tower even though the roof had been blown off, how they found a pair of Trewlaney's glasses completely intact beneath the rubble on the third floor.

“I should have been there to fight,” she said sadly. “I was supposed to fight.”

“None of us should have been there. I’m glad you were down in London. I’m glad you were safe.”

She asked him about Harry and Ron and he assured her that they were alive, even offered to help her get in touch, to send them an owl, but she wasn’t quite ready for it.

“They’ll want to see you. They looked for you for a long time,” he said. “It was only when the war got too heavy that they had to give up.” He touched her knee so that she looked him in the eye. “Whenever you’re ready, I’ll help you find them.”

The air in the room grew too warm, too thick, the emotions too heavy so Hermione changed the subject, informing Draco that the cottage was now cleaner than it ever had been, everything in its place, every book on a shelf, she’d even done his laundry.

“Of course you did,” he said, laughing for the first time in days. “Leave it to you Granger.”

Hearing him say her name like that, the drawling way he used to say it in school when she wasn’t broken, when she wasn’t fragile…it flooded her with desire. That was who she’d fantasized about. That was who she’d dreamt of. She wanted the sharp, biting Malfoy back; the swaggering, grinning, arched eyebrow, sarcastic Malfoy who challenged and argued and stood up to her. She wanted the real Draco.

They didn’t talk at all about their seventh year, about her mind or her memories, the last night at Hogwarts. For hours they pretended that none of it had happened. They went back to how they were…Peach and Angel, alone in the world. And in that quiet solitude, her head a bit fuzzy from wine and exhaustion, Hermione felt it again, the need to touch him, to taste his lips and feel his tongue, to run her fingers over his arm. Just thinking about kissing him made her shiver with arousal and she shifted position, clearing her throat.

 

Eventually their conversation fell into silence, the fire crackling beside them as they sat close enough to hear each other breathe. Both waiting…both wanting, needing something to help them break through.

“That barmaid,” Hermione started. “Amalthea…did you…”

“No,” he said, without a moment’s hesitation. “I made a fool of myself when I came here. I was drunk and rude and angry…she took care of me is all.” He touched her cheek to look into her eyes again and when she didn’t pull away he kissed her. It was soft. He was slow and gentle, not wanting her to remember any other kiss he’d ever given her. And when he broke away her cheeks were red and she bit her bottom lip. “I don’t want to be with anyone but you," he said.

She leaned into him and kissed him back, this time with a bit more urgency, her hand pressed to his chest. He pulled her against him, his hand on the back of her neck as he pushed her lips apart with his tongue. Moving to thread her fingers through his hair she whimpered for more and he kissed her harder, moaning against her mouth, the fissures in his façade of restraint beginning to crack wide. She clung to him and he didn’t let go until he was out of breath. She smiled at him with flushed cheeks, panting for breath. He pressed his forehead against hers, massaging the bone at the top of her spine.

“I can’t ever take back what I did to you," he whispered. "I can’t ever…give back what I took…”

“Draco…”

“Shhh,” he closed his eyes and she went still, basking in the warmth of being so close to him, in his arms, feeling his heart beating beneath her palm.

“But I can give you the one thing that you’ve never had,” he said. “I promise I can…I can make you feel beautiful and safe and for a while you can just let go and not be afraid. You can lose yourself in feeling good. Just once.”

She didn’t answer him right away, only closed her eyes and drank in his touch, his fingertips stroking up and down her arms as his buttery voice purred in her ear with these delicious propositions.

 

It seemed like such a silly thing, an inconsequential thing in a world where she’d literally had to fight to stay alive and safe. Sex was…a luxury. Sex was something other people did, people with functioning lives and families. She knew nothing of that life. To her sex had been nothing but darkness. It had been a transaction, a weapon, a bargain made to stay safe, a tool to stave off violence. And until she’d found him, lived with him, kissed him she’d never been interested in sex being anything else. But when she was alone in the cottage stripping off her clothes and wrapping herself in his sheets, laying her head on his pillow to drink in his smell, her mind had wandered off to those unknown places. She closed her eyes and imagined their bare skin slipping together, frantic, passionate kisses, his mouth on her breast, her belly, his tongue between her legs. She wanted to know what it could be like. And she knew it was wrong to want these things from _him_ , the same man who had hurt her so many years ago – but it didn’t matter. Her heart was stronger and louder than her head. There was nothing for it. She wanted him.

She stood up from the chairs by the fire and smiled at his hopeful, expectant face. She was still bundled up in two sweaters and jeans but as she slowly began to peel the layers away he sat watching in rapt silence, his mouth fallen slack. When finally she stood in front of him, barefoot in her jeans and white bra she held her hand out to him, pulling him to his feet.

“Yes,” she said, before kissing his mouth, her fingers finding the buttons of his shirt. “Just for tonight. Just once, show me what it can be like.”

After she’d pushed his sleeves down over his arms Draco pulled her hands up to his lips, kissing each of her knuckles.

“Are you absolutely sure? You don’t…”

She stopped his talking with her lips, this time with a bit more force, a bit more of the passion she’d held hidden for years. She kissed him to remind him of the kiss they’d shared in the hallway back at the cottage.

“Yes, I’m sure. Don’t ask me again. Just show me,” she said, pulling him towards the bed on the other side of the room. “Show me what you’ve dreamed of doing.”

She climbed onto the messy, unmade bed and knelt in front of him, her hands on his chest. For a moment he saw something dark and sultry in her expression, for a moment he saw seduction, he saw her filled with raw lust and his cock twitched, his eyes traveling hungrily over her body; the thin straps of her bra, the narrow oval shape of her navel, her tongue flicking out over her lip. It was really her. It was Hermione Granger…touching him, kissing him, wanting him willingly.

In a rush of energy he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close, devouring her with kisses, his tongue finding hers, twisting and stroking inside the heat of her mouth, fisting her hair so he could nuzzle her neck, kiss her jaw.

“All I’ve ever dreamt of is making you come,” he rasped in her ear, the words like a smooth, tempting serpent. He slipped the strap of her bra down over her shoulder and licked at the hollow of her throat. “I’ve dreamt of seeing you come apart beneath me, sweating, shaking, your fingernails raking my back.”

His words made her whimper as she felt the muscles between her legs clenching and twitching, a heavy heat building low in her belly. Draco’s calloused fingertips brushed over the tender flesh of her breasts, teasing her nipple with light circles.

“I’ve taken enough,” he said. “Now I’m just going to give.”

Crawling up beside her on the bed, Draco lay her down on her back, sliding down to run his tongue over her taut nipples, kissing and sucking while his fingers tickled over her ribs, down her arms, his thick thigh pushing up between her legs, nudging them apart. She whined in amazement at how good it felt, how warm and electric and alive she felt beneath her skin. With her fingers sunk into his silken hair she arched her back to meet his mouth, silently begging for more, for him to push her further. He looked up at her and smiled wickedly, the tiniest flash of the old Draco, as he ran the flat of his tongue up between her breasts and moved up to kiss her mouth.

“Good?” He asked.

“More…please.” Without thinking she pushed his head down further, spreading her legs wide enough for him to nestle between them.

His blood heated at the spark of life in her eyes, the way her mouth fell open in awe when he touched her the right way. Stroking and massaging her breasts beneath his palms he kissed his way down to her belly, pausing to dip his tongue to her navel, deep enough that she squealed in surprise at the bolt of energy that shot right to her clit. This was what she’d never had. She’d never had someone worship her body. She'd never felt this blinding pleasure, this most basic, animalistic need.

When he reached the scars, the rough, pink skin just above her pubic bone, he could feel her freeze beneath him. Her writhing and bucking stopped, her cries for more fell silent. Propping himself on one elbow he reached up with his other hand to touch her face.

“I love every part of you,” he said, bending down to kiss the marks he’d left on her. She hissed her breath out between her teeth but he could feel her start to soften. He felt her lips on his palm. “Every part of you is beautiful.”

“Please Draco…” she said quietly, and he felt her legs spread a bit wider, her knees bent.

“What, love?” he asked, kissing the inside of her thigh, the softest, warmest skin. She bucked her hips against him.

“Please touch me,” she breathed. “I want...I need to come. Please.”

He ran his fingers over the scars, then through the neat thatch of dark hair between her legs, making her moan and squirm with impatience. She was anxious, she was ready, but he wanted to remember every moment, every sound and touch, the smell of her skin, her musk, the way the light from the fire cast her in gold, her hair in her eyes, a few damp strands stuck to her kiss bruised lips, the way she panted his name. She was begging him again. But this time she was begging him for more.

Moving lower, he ran one finger between her legs, surprised to find her warm and wet, open and ready for him. His fingertip brushed over her clit and she bucked her hips, a cry of surprise escaping her lips. She’d touched herself before, knew how to make herself feel some semblance of pleasure, but when it was him…when Draco touched her, breathed against her, murmuring almost to himself how beautiful she was, that she was everything he’d dreamed of…well nothing compared to it.

He put two of his fingers to her lips and rasped,

“Lick."

She sucked them in deep over her tongue, tasting herself on him as he kissed her belly. Pulling them from her mouth, he dragged the wet fingers down the length of her overly sensitive body, between her breasts, over her stomach until he was back to the slick lips of her sex, rubbing at her clit with the damp fingertips while Hermione all but purred with pleasure. It wasn’t just his touch that sent her reeling. She could see that his face had changed, his eyes were dark, flashing in the firelight while he watched her mouth wrapped around his fingers. She could see that his lips had curled into a knowing, wicked smile. The lust had taken over, pushing Nervous Tentative Draco off to the sidelines. His fingers worked magic inside of her but she wanted more so she wrapped her hand around the back of his neck to pull him closer.

“Your tongue,” she said as his eyes shot up to meet hers. “Use your tongue.”

Draco was a magnificent kisser, giving her goosebumps every time their lips met, but his mouth on her pussy was otherworldly. She almost wondered if he was using some sort of charm on her but didn’t care enough to ask; because she could feel it starting, the slow, undulating wave of heat and energy, the sheen of sweat prickling on her hairline. She could feel the pulsing between her legs as they began to tremble from his touch.

He held her legs wide and slowed his pace, tonguing her with long, languid strokes, drawing out her pleasure, bringing her right to the edge and then pulling back before diving in again. He couldn’t get enough of her bright, earthy taste, the silky feel of her sex, her heat on his tongue.

“Oh God, Oh my God Draco,” he pushed herself up on her elbows to watch him twisting and thrusting between her thighs. She pushed forward, grinding against his open mouth, her climax building, racing closer to the edge. When he paused to look up at her, staring into her eyes and giving her a smile as his tongue swirled over and around her clit she finally exploded, falling backwards onto the bed, her legs clamping down on his shoulders as every nerve in her body shuddered and throbbed in unison. She gasped and bit down on her arm to try and keep from screaming, but how could she? It was like nothing she’d ever felt in her life.

Draco pulled away with one last kiss on the inside of her leg and she wasted no time pulling him up beside her and flipping him onto his back to kiss him, his lips shining and swollen, tasting of her. He pulled her down against his chest and she could hear his own heart racing, feel the hard length of his erection against her hip.

“You,” she said, backing up to sit on her heels. “I want to see you. I want to taste you like you did me.”

She ran her hands down over his chest, tickling over his skin until she got to the waistband of his jeans. For a moment she paused, giggling almost to herself as she looked up at him.

“I don’t…I’m not really sure what I’m doing but…”

“Shh…do what you want. What you feel,” he said, running his hand through her hair.

She undid the buttons and slipped his jeans and underwear down his thighs and off, throwing them unceremoniously over her shoulder. He shuddered as she touched him, her warm fingers wrapped around his shaft, her thumb running over the head of his prick. He could feel her breath, her hair tickling him. She flicked her tongue out over the weeping tip, slowly stroking him.

“Fuck,” he said, “God, Hermione…” he put a hand on her cheek. “This was all supposed to be for you…you don’t have to…"

“It is for me," she said. Then, looking up at him as she felt him grow hotter and harder in her fist she kissed his belly and said, "Draco, I want to suck your cock.” Her  voice was low, husky and hoarse. The sound of her saying the words nearly put him over the edge and he groaned, closing his eyes.

She wrapped her mouth around him, laving and lapping at the taut skin. He kept his hand on the back of her head but didn’t push, letting her move at her own pace, slowly taking him into her mouth an inch at a time, pulling back and sinking forward, slicking him with long, hot swipes of her tongue. He hit the back of her throat and she let out a little humming sound of a surprise that made him buck against her mouth.

“I’m sorry…” he said. “I…”

She pulled off of him then and crawled up his body, straddling him, her hair hanging over her shoulder, brushing over his chest.

“I want you Draco. I want you inside me.” She bent down to kiss him, rolling her hips so that she rubbed her wetness over his length. “But you have to promise me something.” He tried to kiss her again but she pulled back with a teasing smile. “Promise me.”

“Anything,” he said, his hands on her hips, bucking up against her to feel the friction of her pussy again. “God…I can’t…’

“You have to promise me that you won’t hold back on me,” she said, rolling her hips again, teasing him, bending down to kiss the pulse pounding in his throat. “That you won't _be careful_. You won’t treat me like I’m going to shatter, like I’m fragile.”

“Hermione…” her name escaped his lips on a breath as she continued to rock over him, his hot, thick cock now slick with her own juices. His fingers dug into her hips.

“Promise me you’ll give me everything. I want to feel everything.”

Wrapping her hair around his hand he pulled her head down so he could look her in the eye and she nearly shivered at the hunger and want on his face as he panted, his cheeks flushed, pupils blown wide.

“I’ve dreamt of nothing but you for years, Hermione. And now you’re here and I promise you, I couldn’t hold back if I tried.”

She nodded and slid back, lowering herself onto him, watching his face every second as he sunk into her heat, his jaw slack, eyelids fluttering. When he was fully sheathed inside of her she braced herself on his chest and began a slow, rolling rhythm as his hands held tight to her waist. He was bigger than she’d imagined…thicker, and the stretch and fullness was delicious, sliding easily against her silken walls.

“So good…” he said, through clenched teeth. “So perfect wrapped around me.”

He thrust up against her and she smiled, letting him quicken the pace as he reached over to stroke her clit with his thumb.

“I want your mouth. I want to watch you come again,” he said, sitting up and pulling her into his lap, their legs wrapped around each other’s waists. He sucked and bit at her throat, massaging her breasts as she rode him. “Kiss me,” he said as his rhythm began to stutter, his movements sharper, rougher. “Fuck my mouth with your tongue,” he growled in her ear. “I’m not going to last.”

Hearing his desperation, his need for her nearly set her off, but she did as he asked, kissing him hard on the mouth, her tongue spearing over his, sucking and twisting as he wrapped his arms around her, flipping her onto her back. She dug her fingernails into his back as his hips snapped against hers and he broke their kiss.

“Come,” he said, stiffening and shuddering with one last push. “Come for me again,” he said. And as she felt the spreading heat inside her, she felt her second climax wash over her, the muscles inside pulling him deeper, clenching and milking as he nearly howled in ecstasy.

He collapsed on top of her, breathless, his head on her chest and she held him there, stroking his damp hair as they both caught their breath.

“I love you,” he said, so quietly she wasn’t sure she was meant to hear it. “I’ve always loved you.”

She shifted out from beneath him and pulled the blankets up to cover them, curling on her side to look him in the eye, the room shadowy in a mixture of fire and moonlight. It was hard to remember a time when she felt more at peace.

“I love you, too,” she said, running her hand over his cheek. Tears stung her eyes but she quickly sniffed them up when she saw the worried look on his face. She shook her head at him and smiled. "Thank you. Thank you for showing me what it's supposed to be. I was afraid I'd never feel it. That I would never know."

He kissed her palm and pulled her in against him, sighing as she curled into the crook of his arm, the two of them falling into the first night of restful sleep either of them had had in weeks.


	16. Stagnation

He isn’t surprised to wake up alone, to roll onto his side and see the dent in her pillow, the blankets pulled back. He knew that the dream couldn’t last.

 

She’d woken him in the night with tiny whispering kisses on his chest and neck. Then she’d teased him to life with her hand, stroking him beneath the sheets as she whispered his name in his ear.

“Draco. Draco I want you again,” she said. “I want to feel it again. I want to feel you inside me.” 

It was different the second time. The room was so dark they could barely see each other, finding their way by touch, and the darkness begged for silence, softness. So he rolled onto his side and kissed her, pulling her leg up to hook around his hip. Warming and opening her with two fingers, he slipped inside her slick core. They were molded together, a tangle of limbs and tongues and lips, moving slowly, breathing each other’s breath, meeting each other’s easy thrusts and after they were finished she fell asleep in his arms with Draco still inside her.

 

Now he sighed and rubbed his eyes, the room filled with weak morning sunlight, the sky blue and clear, the storm long gone. He could still smell her on his skin, on the bedding. Maybe he could stay in this cocoon of her...maybe he didn't need to get up at all.

“I don’t know how you ever made it to first period charms.”

He sat up and there she was, sitting by the fire with a tray of tea and scones, eating a bowl of oatmeal.

“You’re still here,” he said, his voice gravelly with sleep that hid the fact that the relief that flooded his system had him near tears.

“Of course I’m still here,” she said. “I told you I wanted you to come home with me.”

She stood and he saw that she was wearing one of his white t-shirts, her hair wild and loose down her back, her features soft and relaxed, filled with light.

“I ran you a bath,” she said, nodding toward the tub on the other side of the room. He could see a tray near the tub with fresh towels and shaving supplies, the blade of a straight razor glinting in the sun.

“How did you…did you conjure those things?”

“No,” she said, laughing. “I just went down and asked Amalthea for them. She made us breakfast too. Come on. You need to clean up.”

Draco slipped out of bed and shuffled toward the steaming bath filled with blue tinted bubbles.

“Are you getting in with me?” He asked, stepping into the water. 

She smiled and flushed a deep red, looking away from his nakedness, shaking her head. There was something about seeing him like that, talking like that in the light of day that made her shy all over again.

“N..no. No, it’s just for you…I already washed up.”

 

He stretched out his legs and rested his arms on the edges of the bathtub, resting his head on the side, letting out a low, rumbling sigh of something like pleasure, or relief…a sound she’d heard out of him before and it gave her goosebumps to hear it again. She remembered so many things now, little details that had been lost in dusty corners of her broken mind. As a child she’d gone to a museum and saw a white marble sculpture of “Sleeping Endymion” and the peaceful look on Draco’s face, the pale cast of his skin reminded her of the Greek Shepherd who chose to isolate himself, sleeping in a cave for eternity so that his lover the moon, could visit him every night.

Hermione pulled the chair closer to the bathtub and sat next to him, running her fingers through his silken hair. There was an empty pitcher on the floor and she used it to pour warm water over his head and shoulders.

“What are you doing, love?” he asked, still not opening his eyes.

“Taking care of you,” she said, lathering shampoo into his hair, massaging his scalp and neck and the tendons in his shoulders. Rinsing out the shampoo with the pitcher of water she scolded him dramatically. “You never let your hair get this dull and lifeless in school.”

He laughed and turned his head to kiss the inside of her forearm, the closest part of her, the first part he could touch. It was amazing, this freedom, knowing that he could freely touch her now, he could hold her and kiss her and see her when she woke. It was as if he’d broken out of a cage that held them apart for so long.

“OK, sit up,” she said, moving to sit directly behind him.

He did as she asked and she lathered his face with the soapy, boar bristle shaving brush.

“Hermione…what..."

“You do look ruggedly handsome, but you need a shave,” she said, dragging the straight razor up the length of his neck while he tipped his head back to look into her eyes. Her cheeks were red again and she took another swath beneath his chin. “Your face was scratchy.”

Knowing exactly what she was referring to, Draco winked and then closed his eyes, allowing her to pamper him, to treat him as if he were someone who deserved such treatment, and for the first time in years he felt like maybe it was ok to be happy…to be pleased with himself. She worked slowly and with precision, her fingers pressed to his forehead as she skimmed the blade along his jawline and he could feel her breath on his skin, reminding him of how she rode him, the look on her face when they were finally joined.

“I guess this is my way of thanking you,” she said, rinsing away the rest of the soap with the edge of a towel. “I had my memory back, I knew what happened, how it happened, but there was something missing. Something that was still…broken. Something still hidden.”

He opened his eyes and looked up at her, still sitting behind him but now she was staring at the bed, the mussed sheets, their clothes a tangled heap on the floor.

“I didn’t think I’d ever be able to feel that,” she said. “To trust someone enough to feel that good and that close and that…”

“Loved?”

“Wanted,” she said, looking down at him. “I’ve felt like everywhere I’ve gone for these past years, everyone has tried to push me away, get rid of me, chase me off. You make me feel…wanted.”

He wrapped one of his wet hands around the back of her head and pulled her down to kiss him.

“Are you sure you already washed up?” He asked, looking at her upside down face, kissing the tip of her chin.

“Yes! I told you this bath was—“

He reached one arm back around her waist and pulled her in, splashing water all over the floor before wrapping her in his arms. He was smiling. He was smiling that devious, mischievous smile that she remembered from so long ago. And she was laughing, laughing deep from her belly, something she hadn’t done before coming to stay with him. And as he nuzzled her neck and muttered “Granger,” against her skin she buried her nose into his wet hair and smiled , knowing the old Draco was back.

 

 

They trudged back to the cottage through the snow, the sunshine nearly blinding as it reflected off the white landscape, the whole world clean and bright, the floor of the forest pristine but for their footsteps.

“What should we do today?” He asked, forming a snowball and throwing it against a tree some fifty yards off. “You could show me how to cook a roast dinner or I could beat you at chess…”

She tried to push him playfully into the snow but he was sturdy enough not to fall. Instead he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder while she squealed and pounded on his back. Up ahead she saw a drift some five feet deep.

“Don’t you dare. Draco Malfoy I promise I’ll shave your head in your sleep if you throw me in that snow.”

He paused then and with a firm slap on her ass, let her down to walk beside him again.

“Don’t ever threaten a Malfoy’s hair,” he advised, his voice grave, but she laughed anyway.

She took his hand in hers and they continued their walk, the pattern of the trees becoming more familiar as they got closer to the cottage.

“You can go home now,” she said after a minute. “You said you left because you were carrying this guilt, this burden…but you don’t need to anymore.”

“I don’t want to go home. It’s not my home anymore. Not really,” he said, his voice tight and clipped, a sign that he didn’t want to discuss it any further.

“Draco, your mother…you’re her only child. It must break her heart that you’re gone…at least let her know you’re alive, you’re healthy. Let her know that you’re finally happy.”

He didn’t answer her. He didn’t know what to say. The only sound was their boots crunching over the snow and the creaking of the trees when the wind kicked up. She didn’t push him, only held his hand tighter and he didn’t pull away.

 

Finally he took out his wand and whispered the incantation to lift the wards on the cottage, the gray stone walls and timber roof appearing like a mirage, replacing the trees that stood concealing it to others walking through. He unlocked the door and lit the fire with a flick of his wand, pulling off his cloak and hanging it up.

“You’re right,” he said, breaking the silence.

He was looking down at the crackling orange flames, the glow reminding him of evenings in the library at the Manor as a child, his mother reading stories while his father pantomimed the action. Draco truly had been everything to them. Lucius hadn't always been the villain everyone saw him as. He'd just fallen into the dark pit he was raised to revere, something Draco swore he'd never do. Hermione appeared beside him and threaded her hand through his arm, resting her head on his shoulder. If Narcissa deserved anything, it was to know that he was that he’d finally found peace.

“I’ll send her an owl,” he said, almost to himself. “I won’t tell her about you, that I found you. I’ll just tell her that I’m happy and healthy and that I’m thinking of her. I’ll tell her I love her.” He looked down at Hermione with a raised eyebrow and smug little grin. “Will that make you happy?”

“Yes,” Hermione said, patting his shoulder. “But only because I know it will make YOU happy, whether you admit it or not.”

 

They made a late lunch and then sat by the fire with mugs of tea, Hermione reading a book on Wizarding Travels In Asia and Draco composing his letter home.

“There are people out there who are heartbroken over you too, you know,” he said, folding the parchment into an envelope shape and sealing it with black wax. “I know it will be hard. Overwhelming even. But you have to tell Harry and Ron you’re OK.”

“I know,” she said, putting down her book.

 

In truth she hadn’t been able to focus on her reading at all. She was comfortable and happy being alone with Draco, and as good as it felt to be so secure and safe and loved, she knew that it wasn’t right. There were parts of her life that she couldn’t ignore, no matter how messy or complicated it would become to face them straight on. Now that she knew the truth she’d have to tell others the truth; how she came to lose her memory, what happened when she ran away and how the last person she should have trusted was the only one willing to save her. She was comfortable here in the isolation of the cottage but she knew better than to believe she could stay. Her parents once told her that when she was most uncomfortable was when she was growing. To avoid the hard things meant going stagnant, stuck where they were.Neither of them could hide anymore.

 

Draco made love to her in his bed, taking his time to focus on every inch of her body, each tiny freckle and scar, each tiny bump of bone or curve of muscles. He covered her with kisses, bringing her to a shuddering climax with his fingers working between her legs. She took the lead from him then, kissing her way down his chest, dragging her fingertips over his skin as she took him into her mouth, humming and sucking, her whole body thrumming with arousal as she heard him groan and felt him buck against her mouth.  Before he could come she pulled away and crawled beneath him.

"I like your weight on me," she said, "I love how you fill me."

She pulled him down to her chest as he slowly thrust inside her, pressing her into the mattress, their skin slick with sweat, slipping together as she cried out his name. She fell asleep on his chest, her hair fanned out across his skin, her leg thrown over his, their fingers laced together while he stroked her back.

 

But he couldn’t sleep. Before climbing into bed that night she’d come to his room and stood in front of him naked. She'd held both of his hands in hers and she’d forgiven him for what he’d done. She’d gone down on her knees and begged him, with tears in her eyes, to forgive himself and move on, to be himself again. He’d nodded and told her that he would, that he had, and it seemed to placate her; but saying the words was easy. Believing it was another story. Deep down he knew that her forgiveness of him was only temporary…a forgiveness triggered by lust and memory and loneliness, a burst of endorphins she’d never experienced. It was as if they were both walking gingerly on newly healed bones and rejoicing that they no longer needed a crutch. They were filled with the joy of knowing they loved each other, they remembered each other, they’d found each other; but they couldn’t hide in the forest forever in a bubble of solitude pretending the past never existed, pretending the hurt would never rear its ugly head. That night at the Inn she’d still cried in her sleep, he’d still heard her cry out for help in her dreams. They were walking together, leaning on each other. But they each needed to gain the strength to run on their own.

 

 

Hermione was up before Draco and he came downstairs to find her bundled into her cloak, her bag thrown over her shoulder, heavy with books and clothes. He nodded and smiled at her sadly, knowing what she was going to say, knowing he couldn't hold her there any longer.

“I know you said you could send an owl to Harry,” she said. “That you could let them know I was OK. But I’m well enough to apparate now. I was trying it while you were gone. Or I could take the train, but I think…I think it would be better if I saw them in person, don’t you?”

He stuck his hands in his pockets and nodded again. He’d sent the owl off to his mother in the middle of the night, after Hermione had fallen asleep, including a second, smaller note to let her know that he would be coming home to see her and Lucius soon.

Hermione put down her bag and took his face in her hands, looking deep into his sad, clouded eyes. They kissed and he made a point to commit every second of it to memory, the taste and feel of her lips, the smooth warmth of her tongue touching his, the little sounds she made as he held her close.

“I love you Draco Malfoy,” she said, breaking away. “Whether I should or not, there’s nothing I can do about it right now, it’s just a fact. I love you. But I…I want to see if I still love you after everything is set right, after I’ve gone back to really being Hermione Granger. Does that make sense?”

“It does,” he said quietly. “And I’m going home too. Not for good. I mean, I like it here. I’ll keep the cottage. But I want to see my family. I need to…I need them to know the truth.”

She smiled and kissed him gently, tears stinging the corners of her eyes.

“And I’m going to find the others,” he said, running his hands over her hair, stroking her cheek. “I’m going to tell them that you know, that I told you what they did to you. They all believe they’ve gotten away with it. They all think you’re gone.”

“Don’t tell the Ministry, Draco,” she said suddenly, her eyes frantic. “I don’t…it’s been too long…and like I said I don’t remember the details like you do. I just…I don’t think I could go through a trial…”

“I’m not going to tell the Ministry,” he said, his voice soft and reassuring. “I just want them to know that you know. I want them to know that they didn’t get away clean. I want them to feel guilt.”

Her eyes cut away from him and he could see that she was scared.

“And I’ll make sure they know that if they come anywhere near you I’ll hex them to dust,” he whispered. “I won’t let you go out there into the world again and not feel safe. Know that even if you’re not with me, I’ll find a way to protect you. I promise you that.”

“I’m going to find my way back to you Draco, I know I will. Something brought me back to you once so you could save me. Something will bring me back so I can stay. There are just other things to do first. I’m not broken anymore but I’m not…whole, either.”

They embraced, Hermione’s head nestled against his warm chest and he kissed the crown of her head. Then with one last kiss on her lip, she slung her bag over her shoulder and opened the door.

“Goodbye Angel,” she said, her smile wide and genuine and the brightest, most beautiful thing Draco had ever seen.

“Goodbye Peach,” he answered.

 

She made her way to the edge of the wards but before she stepped into the trees she turned and smiled again.

“Promise you won’t forget me,” she said, laughing. And then moving outside the magical barrier she slipped into the wooded grove and with a crack that echoed through the forest he watched her disappear.

 

The End.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know what to say about all the wonderful kind things people have said to me, the emotions that have been brought to the surface, the real feelings people have had. This has been both fun and hard. I know there are people who won't be thrilled with how this ended...but the epilogue is still to come. I hope you'll be satisfied. In any event, thanks for sticking with me (and Angel, and Peach :) )


	17. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So here we are. At the end. To be sure I have struggled with how I wanted to end this story. My first instinct was to find a "middle of the road" ending that would leave all people somewhat happy...a compromise of sorts. But it seemed wishy washy and wasn't really in tune with what I wanted this story to be and what I always said it was from the very beginning: A Dramione Story. 
> 
> I understand that this story is difficult to swallow at some points and the subject matter is sensitive but I can't please all people at all times and in the end I have to write the story I planned on writing, ignoring the people who told me it was irresponsible or sick or dangerous. I heard your comments, I considered them...but I honestly believe that in a world where people are magical and minds can be completely erased and rebuilt that people can also be rebuilt and redeemed and forgiven. 
> 
> So thank you so much for everything and all of your support and thank you so much for waiting so long for this update. It was like pulling teeth to make sure it said what I wanted to say.

One Year Later

She apparated to a point just outside the forest, the clearing between the trees and the stone wall that marked the outskirts of the village. It was Christmas Eve, almost exactly a year since she’d left him and standing there in front of the tall, snow dusted woods brought all of it back to her. Picking up her basket and her small leather bag she ducked into the forest to make her way towards the cottage.

 

Draco had told her just where to find Harry, who had helped her to find Ron and the three had a tearful, awkward reunion that ended abruptly and bitterly when Hermione revealed how she’d been cured.

“Take us to him,” Harry growled through clenched teeth, his pulse pounding angry in his temple. “He confessed to what he did. That's all we need. He’ll go to Azkaban for years. We’ll get the others, too.” His fists were clenched, every muscle in his body a coiled spring.

“I don’t want you to arrest them, Harry,” she said. “That's not what I came here for. I just…I wanted to see you and catch up with you and make sure you and Ron were OK. To see what you've done since the war, what your lives are like now. I wanted to tell you what happened and let you know that for me it’s over. I didn’t want to find you to exact some sort of revenge. I don't need a pair of white knights to slay the dragon. I’ve made peace with it.”

“He raped you Hermione,” Ron said, his words slow and deliberate as if she were a child who didn’t understand what had happened to her own body, her own mind.

She looked down at her mug of tea, her sock feet tucked up under her legs on Harry’s leather sofa. This was all she wanted. She wanted a life of quiet, a warm house, a family. She had no bloodlust for the men who’d attacked her, especially since her mind seemed to have blocked it completely. Perhaps that was how her brain had chosen to cope. But more than that, she’d seen Draco’s regret. She’d seen the pain he lived with in the years after what they’d done. He was the one who meant something to her, he was the one who had seen her shivering in the cold and gave her a galleon. He was the one who had suffered enough.

“He’s not the man you remember," she said, not raising her eyes. "You remember a boy. A bully. He’s…different now.”

The two of them exchanged glances and made a sound of disgust that made her feel dirtier and lower than Draco had ever made her feel. They had once been her best friends in the world. They had been her family and now they weren’t even listening. They didn’t trust her judgment. Of course she knew now of the rumors that had run through the wizarding world after her disappearance; the whispers that she’d been murdered, that she’d had a nervous breakdown, that she’d run away to France to find Viktor Krum who was now working in Paris. But aside from the rumors were the stories of how she was found in the castle nearly frothing at the mouth, covered in bruises, screaming and ranting, tearing at her hair. She remembered tiny moments of that morning, flashes, like clips of a film...but it was so long ago. But for Ron and Harry; it was the last that they’d heard of her. And she could see now that the image had stuck. That they regarded her like a wild animal, standing at a distance, speaking in low tones, giving her placating smiles, using small words. She was damaged goods.

After a long silence, Harry touched her knee, his face soft, a kind a smile on his lips that reminded her of their first year at Hogwarts.

“I’m sorry we weren’t there for you Hermione. We should have been there.”

“Yes, well,” she said, setting her unfinished tea on the table and looking for her shoes. “I remember begging you to stay at the beginning of the school year. As I recall you weren’t there for me then, either.”

 

 

The forest was turning to shadow as the sun sunk lower on the horizon, lengthening the shadows, casting a purple glow on the thin layer of snow that covered the ground. She smiled to herself remembering the place where he’d pushed her into the snow, or the clearing where he’d hid from her to try and startle her memory back. Just being able to draw up those images, the feelings, the words, even the smell of the trees and Draco’s cologne…the ability to find these memories were a gift that he’d given her. They were his reparation.

She’d read in the Prophet about Draco’s visit home to the Manor. It had been the hot gossip for days, speculation that he had a secret family hidden somewhere, that he’d come back because his father was dying, that Draco was dying, that he was working with the Ministry undercover somewhere. The truth was far less exciting but she still smiled when she read it, snipping out the photo of him in his black wool coat, sipping a cup of tea.

 

> _“I’ve been away from my family for a long time”, said the youngest Malfoy as we sat for tea last Thursday. “I’ve been dealing with some personal issues that have haunted me since long before the war. I'm doing my best to become a better, more…complete man. Something you'll hear all about soon enough. To be sure I’m not finished yet, but I thought I’d come home to report on my progress.”_
> 
> _Draco Malfoy smiles much more than he used to. He’s far more forthcoming with answers and far easier to be with, even allowing us to take several photos! This reporter suggests that whatever it is he’s doing to improve himself needs to be bottled and sold at apothecaries everywhere! Lets hope that Draco Malfoy - Complete Man shows up in London soon enough!  
>  _

 

It was nearly dark when she saw the glow of the windows through the trees and her heart pounded hard in her chest, her throat tightening as tears filled her eyes. For a moment she was terrified. What if she knocked on the door and a woman answered; a pretty little witch with dark hair and beautiful eyes and a gold band on her finger? What if he’d left Hermione in his past and moved on? What if forgetting her was one of his self improvements? What if she knocked on the door and Draco wasn’t there at all; a new wizarding family taking his place? She looked down at the basket at her feet and readjusted the leather bag on her shoulder. When she came back, she’d brought everything she owned. She’d come back with an intention of never leaving. And now her stomach churned at the thought of him turning her away.

Because as hard as she'd tried to forget him, to realize how wrong it was for them to be together…she couldn’t. As much as she tried to find comfort and contentment in other people…reuniting with Luna and Ginny, even talking with Hannah Abbott in Diagon Alley while she was picking out baby clothes for her third child, it never felt right. These people warmed her heart, they made her smile, but there was always something tugging at her heart. When she tried to sleep at night she remembered what it felt like to curl herself around him, the way he ran his fingertips over the shell of her ear while they talked. How his voice sounded whispering to her in the dark.

As she made her way around London she found things she wanted to show him, heard stories she wanted to tell him. She missed his smile, his laugh, the smell of his clothing, the feel of his lips on her neck. For a while when she first ‘came back to life’ there were men who wanted to help her "make up for lost time", welcome her back to society with their amazing prowess, but none of them lured her to their bed. Although they’d agreed to go their separate ways even letting other men touch her arm felt like betrayal. None of them knew what she’d been through. None of them knew how she’d been ripped apart, reduced to a thousand pieces and carefully put back together. There was only one person who knew how to touch her, how to soothe her nightmares. There was only one man who knew how to bring her into the light.

And she knew she was the only person who could do it for him.

 

Walking closer she heard something she’d never heard before from the little stone cottage. Music. Christmas music. She smiled and tried to see in through the windows covered with frost, but as she stepped up she heard him whistle.

“Come on then…we’ll go out before it gets too cold and settle in for the night.”

Her heart dropped to her feet. There _was_ someone else. Someone he was going to settle in with, sleep with, someone to get him through the cold night. She picked up the basket and turned to leave when the door creaked open and a little wiry haired black terrier bounded through into the snow, yapping and running right toward her.

“Winston? Winnie, get back here!” Draco left the house and looked out into the darkness. As per usual the damn dog had run off immediately.

And immediately he’d found treasure.

 

She’d promised she would come back but he’d never believed it. He knew that as soon as he escaped their little oasis the spell would be broken…so to speak. She would go back to the real world with all of her friends and her brains and the money he’d slipped into her bag and she would make a new life for herself, creating new memories…finding new love.

But there she was. It was dark and cold and most of her body was obscured by the trees but she was there, her long brown hair falling in waves past her shoulders, bundled in the cloak he'd bought for her, with little Winnie barking at her feet.

  
“Hermione?” He said, almost to himself.

“Happy Christmas Draco,” she said, her smile wide, teeth glittering in what little light there was. 

He raced forward, pushing back sharp branches, reaching for her, but before they touched he heard a different sound. A small, high-pitched cry from her feet.

The dog had woken the baby who was well bundled in blankets and scarves and warming charms, tucked safely into an enchanted ash wood basket that made it safe for her to apparate alongside her mother.

“Oh Violet,” she said, reaching down to lift her. “You’ve ruined the surprise.”

 

 

Draco stood in front of her in shocked silence, his eyes wide, darting from face to face, mother, daughter, mother, daughter, unable to find the suitable words.

Hermione knew she should have told him the moment she found out she was having his baby, but she didn’t want to risk something happening and breaking his heart. She’d seen enough people lose babies and she knew that her body wasn’t in the best of shape and so her entire pregnancy was spent walking on eggshells, waiting for something to happen.

“Hermione,” he said again, taking his face in her hands, kissing her forehead and pulling him against his chest. “I didn’t think I’d ever…I just…”

The little girl squirmed between them and Draco pulled back to look at her tiny pink face, the little fuzz of snow-white hair on her head.

“She’s…” he still wasn’t sure it was all real. Every day he’d dreamed of finding her standing at his doorstep, or seeing her in the village. Every day he dreamed of waking up and having her beside him, smiling, arms outstretched, but this was more than he could have imagined. “She’s mine?”

Hermione laughed out loud; a ringing clear laugh that made the dog bark again.

“Look at her eyes Draco, they’re like diamonds. Of course she’s yours.” She held the baby out to her father and he held her gingerly, letting Hermione arrange his arms to support her neck. “I haven’t been with anyone else Draco,” she whispered, watching him beam at the little bundle in his arms. “I can’t even imagine being with anyone else.”

 

 

His mother had cried when he came home. She had pulled him into her arms and he could feel her whole body shake with sadness and relief and anger and joy. Over her shoulder he could see that Lucius stood, stoic and ice cold, his eyes tired and much older than he remembered. Draco looked to him and they offered each other a curt nod. He hadn’t come home for his benefit. If it weren’t for his mother he wouldn’t have come home at all.

“How could you have done such a thing? Leaving me without a word, without a hint of where you’d gone, what you were doing…” Narcissa paced the floor of the parlor as they sat for tea. Draco knew he’d have to suffer through this dressing down, but this was part of his new life…part of rebuilding things was to first knock them to pieces.

“There were things I needed to…sort for myself, about myself. Consider it a sabbatical, or like when you and your friends go to that Spa in Moscow,” Draco answered, trying to remain calm. When he eventually told his mother that he wouldn’t be staying, that he preferred his quiet life in the woods, he needed her to not explode.

“But Draco…”

“Mother. I wasn’t in a right place when I left. And you knew it. You said you noticed that I was uncomfortable, that I wasn't myself.” He caught Lucius’ eye again who offered a tight, nearly secret nod. “I needed to fix some things. Set them right. I…you’ll hear the whole story soon enough, but just know that I’m better now. I’m happier and healthier now.”

“Are you alone? Have you found someone?”

Had he found someone? Yes. He found the only person who could fix him. He found the last person he should have and the only one who knew who he really was.

 

 

They sat in front of the fire in the cottage, Violet squirming on a white blanket in the middle of the floor.

“She’s perfect, isn’t she?” Draco said, unable to do much but stare in wonder. "I mean...I haven't been around many babies...but she's...far more beautiful than most, isn't she? I think she is." He’d never even considered the possibility that he would be a father one day. The concept terrified him right to his core, that he would be responsible for the life and wellbeing of an innocent child, a child who would look at him as a mentor, a hero, a comfort, a guide. He had never been any of those things ever in his life and no one had been those things for him.  He hadn't the slightest idea where to begin.

“She is. Every time I look at her I have to smile at how much she looks like you. Look at her lips, the little cupid’s bow just like your own.”

He was torn away from Violet then, his eyes sliding up to meet Hermione’s, her soft smile in the dark, cheeks still pink from the cold. Draco moved to sit beside her on the sofa and they kissed; a slow deep kiss, a reclamation after so many months apart. 

“I missed you,” he said, running his knuckles over her cheek, down her throat. She closed her eyes, leaning into his touch. “You’ll never understand how much I missed you. I was sure you would never come back.”

“I always knew I’d come back,” she said, turning to kiss the back of his hand. “Even when everyone told me not to. They’ll never understand that I’ve forgiven you.”

Draco nodded. He’d had his own struggles in explaining his relationship with Hermione. Lucius was, of course, horrified, offended, and for weeks Draco teetered on the edge of being disowned until Narcissa was able to talk him off the ledge. 

 

_“You wanted me to be happy. You wanted me to be fulfilled,”_ he’d told his mother before leaving the Manor after his two-month visit. “ _With her, I am.”_

_“But this…this plan of yours Draco…it can never be undone.”_

_“Then I’ll know just how she feels.”_

They put Violet to sleep in her basket on the floor of the bedroom where she could bask in the glow of the fire, then climbed into Draco’s bed together, Hermione clinging to him as if assuring herself he was real.

“All anyone wants is revenge,” she said, tickling her fingers over his forearm. “It doesn’t matter to them what I want, how I feel. It doesn’t matter to them that I love you. All they want is blood.”

“Not revenge,” Draco said, kissing the crown of her head. “Just consequence.”

He’d imagined for months that when she finally found him again they would devour each other with their passion, that they’d barely make it through the front door of the cottage with their clothes on, their mouths and hands and limbs tangled and hot, their desire bringing them to their knees. But now that she was there, and he knew that she was there for good, all he wanted was to hold her against his chest, to feel her ribs expand as she breathed, to hear the little murmuring sounds in her sleep. There was time for passion later. Now they could just enjoy the quiet.

 

 

He had found the others. Nott and Zabini. Goyle was first and most easily found, his family having grown to three small children all under the age of five, his wife a perpetual feature in the society pages of the Prophet.

“You told her? You told her everything, mate? What are you trying to do? I’m trying to get a job with the Ministry! You can't do this to me, Malfoy. You don't understand,” Goyle had hissed at him as they sat in the Leaky Cauldron. “This will ruin me.”

“You were already ruined,” Draco said, dropping a galleon on the table to cover the cost of his ale.

 

 

Zabini, now a wizard of leisure in the South of France had only shrugged when Draco confronted him.

“She was drunk. A drunk mudblood in the Slytherin common room. Who do you think the Wizengamot would believe?”

“Don’t call her that.”

“Look around you, mate. Look at these witches,” Blaise said, clapping a hand on Draco’s shoulder. “Look at the tits on the girl pouring champagne over there, look at the ass on this sweetheart right here.” He slapped the rounded and tan globe of flesh of the girl sleeping in the sun beside him. “I understand, Malfoy. I really do. These women make us crazy. Showing their ass, pushing their tits in our face at every turn and then all of the sudden it's oh no! I didn't mean for you to fuck me!" He rolled his eyes and sighed. "Look. You felt bad. We all felt bad. It went a little haywire and she went a bit nuts from it. But look, you got to make up for it, and she even fucked you again! Not a jury in the world would convict you now…she gave it up willingly.”

It had felt good to hear the crunch of Zabini’s nose.

 

Nott lived alone in London, working for a magical herbologist and Draco soon discovered that the guilt had eaten at him for years. He’d never dated, never married, he was consumed by what he’d done.

“I just…I didn’t want to be left out of whatever was going on, yeah? I just wanted to feel like part of the…gang,” he said, puttering around the greenhouse where Draco had met to speak with him. “When I heard she’d disappeared, when I heard the rumors that she’d lost her mind…I just…I couldn’t imagine…that it was something that we’d done to her. And the scars…I can’t…”

“She’s ok now,” Draco said. “I helped her recover the memories that were lost. Unfortunately she only remembers bits and pieces of that night because she was drunk but I filled in the rest.” 

“Will you see her again?” Nott asked while pulverizing flowers with a mortar and pestle.

 “I hope so,” he answered, running a finger over the stone wall beside him. “She said she’d come back, that she’d find me, and I believe her. But I told her that I would find all of you. That all of would have to live with knowing that she knew.”

“Yeah but now it won’t just be us mate, will it?” Nott asked, gathering up his tools. “For what it’s worth, which is nothing…tell her I’m sorry. Tell her I’ve always been sorry.”

 

 

He woke and saw Hermione sitting by the fire with the baby suckling at her breast, Winston, the smudge of a dog curled up at her feet; and it was simply the most beautiful, serene picture of domesticity. The look on her face as Violet fed was like nothing he’d ever he’d ever seen in Hermione; soft yet strong, focused, confident. Gone was the frazzled, manic student, or the scared, lost woman. Gone was the confusion and fear and chaos. He crept over to her and ran his hand over the soft fuzz of the baby’s hair before kissing each of them on the forehead.

“Good morning my love. Merry Christmas.” 

“Merry Christmas, Draco,” she said. “She’s just about finished.”

“Good,” he said, pulling on his robe. “I’ll make tea and get something together for breakfast. Then I have something to show you.”

 

 

The sun was bright and Hermione watched out the window as Draco let the dog play in the dusting of snow, throwing sticks and whistling commands. She had never seen him so…loose, so soft and at peace. The weight that hung around his neck had lifted finally and it filled her with limitless hope.

“I was thinking,” he said, while they ate orange cinnamon scones and sipped tea. “It would be so easy to make the room you stayed in before into a nursery. It’s so bright and it stays warm even when the fire is out. I could tell mother to send some of my things…” his voice trailed off and Hermione knew where his mind had wandered.

“They’ll want to meet her I assume,” she said. “Even though she is a halfblood.”

As if on cue, Violet gurgled and giggled from her place on the floor, her wide eyes staring up at her father as she grabbed for her feet. His own expression went stony, his pulse pounding at the hinge of his jaw. 

“Never say that again. Never disparage her, not even as a joke. Not her, not yourself. Muggleborn…halfblood. I don’t care. If my mother ever wants to see her grandchild she’ll have to agree to my…to our terms. I will not have you feeling uncomfortable in the Manor.”

Hermione stroked his cheek and smiled. “I’m never uncomfortable when I have you. You’re my anchor.” 

An apt metaphor. His greatest fear was dragging her down.

 

Once the baby settled in for her nap, Draco brought Hermione to the small library on the second floor. There were more shelves, a larger desk, newer volumes on a more extensive list of subjects. He invited her to sit at the desk and pulled a hardback book with a black cover off the shelf and set in front of her. The cover looked brand new, a green viper embossed on it, curled around a quill, fangs exposed.

 

**The Snake Pit – An Exposure of The Toxic Entitlement Culture of Slytherin House in the 90s**

by Draco Malfoy

 

“Draco…” she said, opening the cover. “What is…”

 

Dedicated to HG

Who suffered in silence and solitude for too long

May she find peace

  

She said nothing, but he could see her eyes widen, her fingers running over the black print.

“I found the others,” he said, while she flipped through the chapters, her mouth hanging open in surprise. “I couldn’t believe their reactions. How little they cared, how they’d never even considered what damage they’d done. Except for Nott. Nott was broken hearted. He wanted to know how to help you.”

She looked up at him, tears pooling in her eyes as she shook her head in disbelief.

“They begged me not to tell this story. They begged me to cover it up, to bury it forever and never let anyone know, to let it all be brushed under the rug since you don’t remember it properly anyway. They offered me hundreds of galleons on your behalf, but I know that isn’t right. I know that isn’t enough. It can't be forgotten.”

“Draco, your life will be ruined.”

“I don’t care. I’ve already told my parents and we’re working our way back to something of a relationship…I’m sure Violet will go a long way to help in that department. It’s too late for us to go to Azkaban. But you can get monetary reparations for what happened to you.”

“I don’t want…”

He held his hand up to quiet her. “You already know that everything I have is yours. I would give my last breath for you. But Goyle and Zabini…they think they’re in the clear. They’ve suffered no consequence. When this book is released next week that will change. Every galleon I make on this book will go to the women’s healing house in London. And if you’re feeling up to it, maybe once Violet is a bit older, once the publicity has died down, perhaps we could work there…together.”

“I would like that,” she said. “I’ve had a hard time finding a place in the world. Wondering what I wanted to do. And then Violet came and she filled every minute, still does…but I still need to have a plan. I’m not going to lay around being a kept woman,” she said, giving him a raised eyebrow and a playful grin.

“Well, not _all_ the time,” he said, pulling her up and into his arms. “We’re going to hide out for a while, behind the wards of invisibility. We’ll stay here while the bomb drops, just you, me, Violet and Winston. We can study healing techniques…I can write…we can prepare ourselves. And when its time to reappear in the world…we can do it together.”

He bent down to kiss her and she stroked her fingers through his hair.

“It won’t be easy,” she said. “There are people, I know, who think you should never be forgiven. Never given a second chance. There are people who think I’m insane to love you.”

“I know,” he said. “But when have I ever cared what others thought?”

"Thank you Draco," she said, standing and wrapping her arms around him. "This means so much to me, that you would make this sacrifice for me."

"This is our consequence, my love. This is how we're sure it will never be forgotten."

"It's enough for me that you finally helped me remember."

 

The End

 


	18. The actual end

This isn’t an actual chapter. I had to add something new in order to notify people of the epilogue which is IN chapter 17.

 

thank you everyone for all of your support. I love you all :) 


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